


Avenger

by semaphore27



Series: Götterdämmerung 24/7 [9]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Frostiron - Fandom, Iron Man (Movies), Norse Religion & Lore, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - Magic, Avenger Loki, Avengers Family, BAMF Loki, Best Friends, Brother Feels, Brotherhood, Brotherly Love, Childhood Memories, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Children, Dark Magic, Dogs, Dr. Strange is a prat, Engineers, Epic Friendship, F/F, F/M, Family Drama, Family Feels, Female Friendship, Friendship, Gen, Good Loki, Intersex Loki, Jötunn Loki, Loki Feels, Loki's Kids, Loki's Punishments, M/M, Magic, Magic and Science, Magic-Users, Magical Accidents, Male Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Married Couple, Married Life, Parent Tony Stark, Parent-Child Relationship, Past Child Abuse, Science Bros, Science Experiments, Team as Family, Tony Being Tony, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 06:33:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 39,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15285786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semaphore27/pseuds/semaphore27
Summary: Peace reigns at Avengers Tower. Loki has returned, Odin's gone, Bucky's doing better, everyone's become friends, nothing dire seems to be threatening and maybe, just maybe, things will go smoothly for a change.At Avengers Tower? Sure. That's happening.





	1. Mawwiage, that Bwessed Awwangement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Loki enjoy a reunion, and Tony contemplates a major life change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is a quote from The Impressive Clergyman (played by Peter Cook) in _The Princess Bride_. Loki quotes the film again (the "kisses" line) at the end of the chapter.
> 
> MIT=Massachusetts Institute of Technology, #1 engineering school in the U.S. and Tony's _alma mater._
> 
> Visine is a brand of eye drops marketed by Johnson & Johnson.
> 
> No more monkeys jumping on the bed!" Tony is quoting a popular children's song, which goes:
> 
>  
> 
> _Four little monkeys jumping on the bed_  
>  _One fell of and bumped his head_  
>  _Mama called the doctor_  
>  _And the doctor said,_  
>  _No more monkeys jumping on the bed!_
> 
>  
> 
>  _Ætlarðu að hjálpa að taka upp pabba þínum,_ Sleip?=Will you help pick up your dad, Sleip?
> 
>  _Þú ert dásamleg, falleg drengur minn_.=You are my wonderful, beautiful boy.  
>  _AlÞingi _=Parliament__
> 
> "kicked the bucket"=died  
> Numerous origins for the phrase have been suggested, from suicide, to hog-butchering, to old Catholic funeral customs, but no of them stands out as "the one."
> 
> "Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here." This time, Loki is quoting from the movie _Labyrinth_.

* * *

Though the year seemed to be finally staggering on toward spring, the days still weren’t particularly long, and even though Tony overslept horrendously, having totally spaced on setting his alarm in the two seconds before he crashed the night before, the light outside the windows still showed a depressing gray when he hauled his thoroughly-dragging ass out of bed and to the bathroom, already adding or ticking off items on his mental to-do list.

He performed the usual in a daze: had a piss, brushed his teeth, lurched into the shower, where he set the showerhead to spray down on him in steely-cold needles, in a kind of hopeless hope of being able to shock himself to life like Frankenstein’s monster.

Oh, yeah, and have a nice little cry, shut in there all by his lonesome, where nobody could see and the kids couldn’t hear him—don’t forget that part of the ritual.

He’d dreamed all night about Loki, beautiful, sweet, vivid dreams—gods, so vivid it was like his dying husband was right there, not dying after all, but filling Tony’s arms with satiny skin, his long, sleek form, the fantastic scent and feel of him, ice and evergreen and warm spices, his body fitted to Loki’s, his husband’s lush dark curls spilling everywhere, the way they always would.

Tony twisted off the taps and stepped out of the shower. So far, the morning routine had proved to be a total failure--he still felt like he was swimming through oatmeal, the extra-super-gluey kind they’d served in his dorm cafeteria at MIT.

He just hoped a gallon or so of coffee would finally do the trick, otherwise he’d be doomed for the whole damn day. He had a board meeting this morning, a thing with Hela’s teachers about her missed school days just after noon, Sleip’s occupational therapy at three…

And meanwhile, with his bloodshot eyes and ragged beard he looked like a goddamn derelict. Peachy.

Yet could he be bothered to trim his beard, put a little product in his hair, squirt some Visine in his eyes to hide a little of the redness? The answer was, most emphatically, nope, unh-unh, just not happening.

As Loki had been known to say (with his weird talent for making even rude words sound elegant and refined), he could not, in any possible way, be arsed.

And did he want a drink? A nice little warming, comforting, happy-making drink to start the day and settle his nerves? Damn straight he did!

He just wasn’t going to take one, not now, not ever.

Between meetings, while the kids were in school, he should really haul his sorry butt down to the infirmary, hold tight to his husband’s hand and remind himself exactly why that was.

Meanwhile... Tony sighed, yawned until his jaw popped, and scratched at his scraggly beard.

Oh, double peachy. From the sounds coming from the next room, every single one of the kids was up already, bouncing on his bed (he could hear the springs boinging loudly) and twice as noisy as usual.

Make no mistake, he loved those kids. Loved them like crazy. He just liked to give himself a little cushion of time to transform from cranky early-morning Tony into SuperDad, dispenser of love and patience, solver of problems. Apparently, today, when he needed it most of all, he was not to be allowed the luxury.

Gods, they were stirred up about something, though. Tony wondered what it could possibly be. The bunkbed game aside, they’d all been so subdued lately, like little ghosts in place of the happy, bubbly, full-of-life children he recognized. Yet there they were in the next room, actually sounding like themselves.

Tony tied his robe around his waist (with something of the attitude of a knight girding on his sword for battle) and shuffled out of the bathroom, still trying to find an expression for his face that looked at least slightly pleasant.

“Hey, guys! No more monkeys jumpin' on the bed!”

At which point, a beautiful, silky (if slightly hoarse) British voice called out to him cheerfully, “Husband, good morning! Our much-loved children are all waking, and the day is resplendent!”

In retrospect, Tony thought it was probably the “resplendent” that pushed him over the edge. Even in his dreams or hopes or wishful thinking, he wouldn’t have come up with that one.

His heart just seemed to stop still in his chest, and he went down like a cow in a stockyard, flat on his back on the carpet with cartoon bluebirds tweeting around his head and alarm bells ringing in his ears.

After about thirty seconds of this, he rolled to face away from the kids, not wanting them to see him coming completely unhinged, covering his face with his hands.

 _Loki, oh, Loki!_ he cried out inside his head. This was it. He’d totally lost it. He was hallucinating. He had to be.

“Tony, best-belovéd, I slept in your arms through most of the night,” that same voice said, sounding both meltingly tender and extremely perplexed. “I thought you had realized, dearest. Was I a dream to you, or an apparition?”

 _No, I did not realize_ , Tony thought, with something close to bitterness. _Would I be flat-assed on the floor if I fucking realized?_

“You were fucking dying yesterday, Lok. Bruce and Kurt both said. Okay, actually didn’t say. Implied strongly. There were puppy eyes of doom.”

“My dearest Tony.” In addition to the spoken words, Loki’s mind brushed against his, somehow cool and warm at the same time, and incredibly comforting.

"Allow me..." 

he said, followed by a series of shifting and rustling sounds, then by Loki assuring the kids, "Tis only temporary, dear ones. I would not converse with your father from out of a cave, however charming that cave might have been."

Looking up, Tony saw that the triple-bunker had converted to one king-sized bed, where Loki sat up, surrounded by more pillows than he'd thought they actually owned.

 _Nice trick,_ Tony thought, still feeling a weird kind of stubbornness, one that made him not want to comforted, though he didn't even know why. Maybe he’d just felt too bad for too damn long a time.

“Please don’t be angry with me, Tony,” Loki said, in his familiar tone of hurt-but-hiding-it—and what did it say about him that the tone would be familiar? “I shall summon Bruce to help you, and I… Oh. I see the need for summoning no longer exists.”

The bedroom door burst open. Bruce staggered in, breathing so hard it appeared that he’d taken the stairs.

Bruce, it seemed, needed to put in a little more work on his daily cardio.

“Tony, we have a big prob… Oh, Jesus, he’s here. How in hell is he here? Loki, how are you here?”

“Good morning, Bruce,” Loki said, almost laughing, though in a kind way. “I am here for the reason that Erik and Clint brought me upward in the nighttime as a boon, because I dearly wished to sleep beside my husband once again. It becomes lonely, through the dark hours, in the infirmary, and I wished not to remain there when my much-loved family slept above. Will you be so kind as to raise Tony from off the floor? My Sleipnir will help you. _Ætlarðu að hjálpa að taka upp pabba þínum_ , Sleip?”

“ _Já, pabbi_!” Sleipnir answered, with about the world’s biggest grin on his face. “I am good! I always help!”

“ _Þú ert dásamleg, falleg drengur minn_ ,” Loki said. “You do, most-wonderful son. I am so happy, so very happy, to find you here, my Sleipnir, for without you, this world of happiness could never be complete. And now it is complete, my loves. The sole thought within my mind, after knowledge of the painful task I must accomplish, throughout the time I lingered away, was of how I wished to return to you. Would that I owned a pair of silver slippers!”

And wasn’t that Loki to a “t?” He loved the movie of _The Wizard of Oz_ , and had watched it countless times, but if the book said _silver_ slippers, not ruby, silver slippers it would be for Loki Stark, literary purist.

Tony felt the last of his unreasonable flood of stubbornness drain away.

“I missed you, baby,” he said softly, the only words he could think of right then. “I really missed you. Really really.”

“You are my life entire,” Loki answered simply.

His voice sounded different, happier than Tony had ever heard him, even in his happiest moments.

At the same time, he’d also started to sound slightly breathy, and Bruce, who’d bent down to give Tony a hand up, straightened abruptly.

“Loki?” he said. “You okay? You hanging in there?”

“Very well,” Loki gasped. “Merely very slightly dizzy. Please, Bruce, do not force me back to the infirmary, I beg of you.”

For a consummate actor, Loki had a way of blatantly giving away his hand now and then, and the combination of “very well” and “I beg of you” were obvious clues that not all was well in Lokiland.

Tony made himself sit up. The bedroom did one quick spin, then held still. He was fine, perfectly okay—he’d just given himself something bordering on a panic attack, it seemed. A lightning-fast one. He might even have had a good laugh at his own expense if he wasn’t so worried about his suddenly-back-from-the-nearly-dead husband.

Loki, who, as mentioned, had been sitting up in his nest of pillows and covers, surrounded by all their children, slumped suddenly back against the headboard, clearly trying to make the action look graceful and intended.

Tony knew better. He’d watched his husband, who was invariably shamed by his own physical weakness, pull that one a few too many times.

“Oh, _Pabbi_ ,” Hela sighed. Just like that, their amazing daughter ripped open a hole in the air behind her and slipped through, returning about two seconds later with a full bunch of bananas.

“They’re Auntie Nat’s and Auntie Pepper’s,” she informed them, “But they didn’t mind. I explained.”

“My dearest…” Loki began weakly. “As you well know…”

“I’m fully aware you don’t like them, but you _will_ eat them,” Hela replied sternly, in full-on Childlike Empress mode, then switched her tactic to include her own super-powered version of puppy eyes. “For all of us, please? For Edwin?”

It must have been the “for Edwin” that did it. Loki didn’t look exactly thrilled, but he took the half-peeled banana Hela passed to Bruce, then Bruce to him. Then another. Then another.

Around banana number eight, Tony started to feel slightly ill, because _bananas_ \--but the fact that, by then, Loki had color in his cheeks, and was looking drowsy and contented helped quite a bit.

“Forgive me,” he said, with a sleepy, slightly goofy grin. “It seems I was hungry, or Edwin was. Perhaps I will now turn into a monkey. By chance a howler monkey. Or a gibbon.”

“You really are back,” Tony breathed.

Loki forced open his drooping eyelids. “I am heartily sorry to have been gone from you so long, my husband,” he said. “For you, however, it was only days. For me it was a terrible long stretch of years, body after body failing.”

And then he was out, just like that, no further explanation.

Alarm spiked again in Tony’s chest. At the same time, it hit him, _Just like that damn squirrel said._

But Loki was home, not lost. He was home!

“Sleepy _Pabbi_!” Fen said, helped himself to one of the few remaining bananas and snuggled up closer to Loki’s side, happily snacking.

“Why don’t you get dressed, Dad?” Hela suggested.

“You did that thing, Empress,” Tony said. “Loki’s tearing-open-the-air thing.”

“For some time now,” his daughter answered loftily. “It was useful, in Asgard, for purposes of sneaking around behind Odin’s back.”

Something both defiant and injured sparked in her big green eyes.

Loki’s own eyes, so much like hers, popped open again. “I am sorry, my much-loved Hela, for the sorrows you encountered in that Realm. I am sorry to have hurt you so, sorry that I sent you there—or allowed you to go there, whichever was the case. Yet if you are angry at me, still, that I disrupted your plans and usurped your place, for that I will not apologize, dearest.”

Loki levered himself upright, his face perfectly still, though Tony could detect traces of sadness around the edges.

“For this, Hela, is what you do not comprehend. Odin had laid a trap for you, a geas, and through you, for all of us. You called upon your friends, The Death of Kings and The Violent Death of Gods, but at the end he influenced you without your knowledge and you wished with the whole of your heart, in your brilliance and your pride, to deliver the _coup de grace_ yourself, and thus would you have damned us.”

Loki reached up his hand into the air, and a crow—a fucking enormous crow—suddenly perched on his fist. Up went his other hand, with the same result.

Loki transferred the two big birds to his shoulders, where they combed their shiny black beaks through his long, loose hair and chattered softly in his ears, as Loki appeared to listen intently, looking, for that moment, magical and scary as fuck.

“It is well,” he said then, softly. “It is well.”

The two crows disappeared.

“Okay, that was different,” Bruce commented.

“Forgive me, my friend,” Loki said. “With the end of the enthrallment of the _Æsir_ , and the death of their tyrant ruler, Asgard finds itself in something of an uproar. The _AlÞingi_ , however, rises well to the occasion. I assure them the ravens are my emissaries only, not, as they once were, the cruel spies of the king.”

Tony parked himself on the edge of the bed, down by the foot. “And ‘the king’ is…?”

Loki gave him a look that clearly said, _You have to ask?_ But at the same time, he answered, “For the purposes of transition only. I have made it clear neither Thor nor I will again journey forth from Midgard, and that the people of Asgard must choose their fate. Will they rule themselves in all ways, or shall the House of Bors continue in the capacity of advisers and representatives, or to bring the magical arts to bear against the foes of Asgard, should the need arise? It is all as one to me, and we will not consent to more.”

Loki shifted deeper into the pillows.

“And now husband, please, I am indeed weary, and such discussion wearies me more.”

He really did look completely beat, and unhappy, suddenly, having to talk about Asgard. Which stood to reason—how many days had he spent in coma-city, and what kind of crappy shape had he been in before?

“Kids,” Tony said, “Give your _Pabbi_ a kiss, then go wash up and jump into your uniforms. It’s still a school day. Let’s see if Uncle Thor will come over and make you a yummy breakfast, then see you on your way. Sleip, you go get dressed too, buddy.”

“Buddy!” Sleipnir said, and grinned.

Gods, he was a sweet kid. Looking at that face, so exactly like Loki’s, thinking what Loki had suffered through in his life, made Tony fairly gleeful that old creep Odin had kicked the bucket. How could he have put them through that shit? How could he? To Tony, it was completely unthinkable.

“It is well,” Loki said tiredly. “My brother showers at this moment, but when his ablutions are complete, it will gladden him to oblige us. His heart, he says, is filled with great joy at my return. Let me rest, only a little, and I will with joy come to join you, my much-loved family.” He shifted, trying to force his body upright again, but Bruce held him down with one hand on his shoulder.

“Nope, not happening,” he said, and put his stethoscope against Loki’s chest, listening intently, saying afterwards, “Today—all day—you’re resting and eating as much as we can cram into you.

"Mrs Ransome is on her way in. I'll bring up some monitors for both you and baby in a bit. Tomorrow, if we’ve determined you’re close to okay, you may resume a _small_ \--we're talking infinitesimal here--amount of activity. Slowly. Baby steps.”

“ _Fjanndinn_ baby steps,” Loki muttered, between the kids’ hugs and kisses. “No wonder you and Tony are such excellent friends. One is equal to the other in bossiness.”

“Whatever,” Bruce answered cheerfully. “However, you’re going to do what I tell you, my friend, because I want only the best for you and Edwin. Right?”

“I do not mean to be difficult,” Loki answered, in a subdued tone.

He took hold of Bruce’s hand, studying Bruce’s face with those big eyes that looked all the bigger for how thin his face had become. “I appreciate your care. And I am truly your friend, yes, Bruce? I am now your friend, and your hatred for me has ended?”

“God, Loki.” Bruce squeezed his shoulder.

“When I am stronger, I will do that thing. That thing you wished of me. Just as I now restrain the cold killer within the heart and mind of James Barnes, I will subdue the other one within you, Bruce, if you still wish it.”

“Oh, Loki,” Bruce said again, the pain clear on his face. “You didn’t need to pay Steve to be your friend, and you don’t have to pay me. Despite everything I put you through, every crappy thing I said, I see that, finally. So, when you try to pay me, it kind of hurts my feelings. Like you haven’t forgiven me for the bad times—which I guess you don’t have to do, anyway.”

“Ah…” Loki began, several expressions rippling across his face, each one more painful than the last—while Bruce’s face was full of need and confusion. He turned and left abruptly, shooing the kids before him. Loki slid down until the covers nearly reached his chin, and covered his face with his elegant white hands.

“So soon I offend,” he said, after Tony, with some effort, peeled the concealing hands off again.

“I don’t think, at the moment, Bruce was so much offended as he was, really, feeling an uncomfortable combination of incredibly guilty and seriously, seriously tempted by your offer,” Tony said. “You know how much he wants The Other Guy gone. He also knows you’re most likely the only one who can help him with that. He’s also really scared now of hurting you, sweetie pie.”

“Bruce cares that he not hurt me?” Loki said, his voice full of wonder.

“Damn straight.” Tony slid himself under the covers, his hand up under Loki’s p.j. shirt, rubbing slow circles over Loki’s rounded belly, surprised by the way it seemed to have grown. His husband sighed, snuggling closer.

“Ah, you soothe me, _hjarta hjarta minn_ ,” he murmured in a drowsy voice. “I am soothed. Lie beside me now, but forget not your approaching board meeting, before which, you must trim your beard, and your hair if possible. Have you acquired presentable new suits?”

“Yeah, in my abundant spare time,” Tony grumbled, resting his head on Loki’s shoulder, so his husband would know Tony wasn’t mad at him.

“You looked as if a wall hit you,” Loki said in a sleepy voice that might, just might, contain a hint of laughter underneath the sleepiness. “As if you had run for the entrance to Platform 9 ¾, hoping to board the Hogwarts train of Harry Potter's world, yet the portal did not open. It might have been comical, had my sympathy for you not been so great. Might I keep a dog, Tony--not today, but soon?”

“And the award for non-sequitur of the month goes to Mr. Loki Friggason Stark.”

“How is it managed, Tony, when there is a person you love as much as life, yet that person… that person has not always treated you with the best kindness? You cannot love less, yet the awareness lives in you… There was neglect. There was undeniable cruelty…”

“Meaning me, I suppose?” Tony asked, as lightly as he could, for a guy who was guilty as the sin he didn’t actually believe in. Were there secular sins, which carried their own, real world, here-and-now punishments? He guessed he knew that there were, and that his treatment of Loki, now and then, ranked high among them, right up there with the building of weapons of mass destruction he’d been involved in.

He didn’t forget the things he’d said to Loki, all the drinking, and the shitty things he’d done. Why should he expect Loki to totally forget, and pretend all that crappy behavior never existed?

“Baby, I…” he began.

“You, Tony?” Loki looked at him in absolute horror. “Oh, no! No, no, no, a thousand times. Why should you think…? Oh, _hjarta hjarta minn_ , no! I speak of my mother, of Frigga, the Allmother.

"I think that I will not call myself Friggason in these days," he went on. "But Laufeyson again, in honour of he who gave me life, and who in madness I wronged so cruelly.”

Loki’s voice broke over the last three words. He rolled away from Tony, toward the edge of the bed, and sobbed.

And sobbed.

And sobbed.

Hela popped back into the room suddenly.

“Just so you know, he’s not dead. You didn’t kill him in Asgard. He’s just as good with the faux bodies as you are, _Pabbi_. I met with him.” She gave each of them a swift kiss, then whisked herself out of the bedroom, calling back over her shoulder, “I’m late! Full story to follow after school!”

Loki cried a little more—out of relief, maybe, or confusion—then allowed Tony to dry him off, lying flat on his back staring up at the ceiling.

“I am overly emotional in these days,” he said, after several minutes had passed.

“Totally understandable in every way,” Tony answered. “Though you can always blame Edwin if it helps preserve your dignity.”

“I sit not upon a throne,” Loki said after further reflection. “Neither am I a man of business. I am a writer of books, and an artist, and perhaps may show freely what I feel. Perhaps it is even expected.”

“A favor?” Tony asked.

“Anything, belovéd,” Loki answered, turning toward him a little.

“Okay, then. When you’re sad, or when you’re freaking, don’t hide yourself away in some mysterious part of the tower. I’ll comfort you. You comfort me. Let’s try to become at least a little less screwed up than our parents tried to make us be.”

“You do comfort me,” Loki said. He cupped Tony’s cheek with his hand, thumb brushing gently over his cheekbone. “Oh, but Tony, my Tony, now I am free. I am free. He cannot hurt me more, or injure our sweet children, and while my sorrow is great that I grieved you…”

“You did what you had to do, babe,” Tony said. “Don’t think I don’t understand that. And now you’re home with me. You’re free of your shithole of a dad—for good. I’m free from the drinking—and totally mean to keep it that way. I guess we can move forward.”

“A toast to the future, then!” Loki bent over him, the ends of his long hair tickling Tony’s face and neck, his eyes creased a little with sweetness, kindness, joy.

Tony felt enveloped by his love. He felt warmer, safer, more secure than he had ever felt in his lifetime—and he recognized part of that emotion as his own, part of it as coming from his fantastic husband.

“I love,” Loki said, “And I am complete.”

“What’s that line the old man says in the movie, Lok? About the perfect kisses?”

Loki smiled and, still smiling, brushed his lips against Tony’s—gods, so sweet, and with that wonderful, strange, beautifully familiar sensation of warm/cool that was uniquely Loki’s.

Tony smiled too. “You taste like bananas.”

“Words you will never have the opportunity to utter unto me again, as the fruit is foul, and had not Hela startled me, I would not have eaten them.”

“You had eight, babe. Eight. Are you calling that an accident?”

“Edwin was hungry,” Loki protested, with dignity. “Am I to deny the needs of our most-dear unborn son?”

Tony traced the sharp angle of his husband’s cheekbone with his fingertips, then the too-sharp lines of his jaw and chin. “Babe, I can’t believe… I totally can’t believe. I thought today…”

“’Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here,’” Loki answered, and Tony knew he was quoting again, but quoting what, he wasn’t sure. “And so would I have fought on until the last glimmer of self and consciousness dispersed across the universe, only to reach you, _hjarta hjarta minn_.”

“And the kids,” Tony put in.

Loki laughed aloud. “Naturally, ‘and the kids.’ Tread not upon my moment, husband.”

Tony laughed too, totally enchanted to be watching his husband smile, to see Loki's emotion-filled eyes (malachite green again, and when did that happen?) gazing up at him.

“’Since the invention of the kiss,’” Loki quoted, “’There have only been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure.’ If the kiss of Westley and Buttercup ‘left them all behind’, this kiss, Tony. This kiss we shall share…”

“Alert the media," Tony said. "Our kiss will stamp them all into the dirt and tap dance on them.”

“So poetic, always,” Loki murmured, laughing softly. “Oh, my Tony, my belovéd, my husband, never by any choice of my own will I leave you again.”

The moment his mouth touched Tony’s, they both knew there hadn’t been any exaggeration. Two lonely princes from entirely different worlds had found one another across the vastness of the universe, not only one time, against all odds, but ‘through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered,’ (as Loki had quoted), a second time as well. It not only worked, it not only fit, it was not only meant to be, it was perfect—and as far as Tony was concerned, it could go on forever.

For his wedding gift, Loki had presented him with a single, golden-skinned, luscious-smelling apple. An apple that would never, as long as he kept it, spoil or fade away. It had been sitting, locked up, in his safe since the previous spring.

 _Time for that to change_ , Tony thought, with his amazing Loki in his arms.

Time for the apple to be eaten.


	2. Past, Present, Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki and Thor reunite (including a flashback to the party thrown for Baldr's 2000 birthday). Logan and Kurt disagree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "Scott" Kurt refers to is Scott Summers, aka Cyclops, leader of the X-Men, formerly a little bit of a dick, who went on to become a dick of major proportions. For being a supposed excellent leader, Scott has never been depicted as either, particularly, a people person or a perceptive kind of guy.

* * *

“Brother!” Loki cried aloud, extraordinarily glad to see the top half of Thor’s face peep, however apprehensively, round the edge of the doorframe. “Oh, my brother, come here to me!”

Thor actually entered the room upon tip-toes, which in such a massive and princely warrior of Asgard could be said to appear both ludicrous and endearing.

“I am spun from neither sugar nor glass, dearest Thor. Approach me without fear, please?”

Thor perched upon the bed in a gingerly fashion, yet even as he sat, a sudden grin split his face.

“Lolo, do you remember that most marvelous confection the cooks made when we were young? All the turrets and buttresses of spun sugar, and as we sang…” His enthused voice ground to a halt. He blinked, clearly remembering the truths behind those events, truths his boyhood eyes had not been able to see.

The occasion of that particular confection had been Baldr’s Bi-millennial Naming Day, a very great affair. The favored son of the king had been presented with his great hall, _Breidablik_ , as a Naming Day gift, and dignitaries of many Realms had attended the festivities, including disgraced Laufey King and his two sons, none of the three allowed the least finery or dignity, quite unlike the other monarchs, and the _Æs_ had spat upon the _Jötnar_ royalty, mocking and jeering at their broken enemies as they strode the streets of the Golden City, allowed no other transport, on their way to the Allfather's palace.

Loki, all alone, watched their approach from the balcony of his chamber, as he so often watched the Golden City's events.

He had not shouted. The giants appeared so huge, and so very dignified. They burned with a quiet anger, a rage Loki readily felt, despite their blue skins being splashed with the offal and shite the crude low-borns of the city (and, indeed, some amongst the highborn too), flung at them as they marched.

The _Jötnar_ made Loki feel uncomfortable. He knew they were monsters, had been told stories of the terrible _Jötnar_ and their cruel, uncivilized ways throughout all the years of his First Childhood, yet he pitied them in their disgrace, being only too familiar, in his own right, with that state.

It often seemed Loki had known only disgrace for most of his remembered days. Only for a year or so of his First Childhood had his father seemed to tolerate his presence, but those times had soon ended. Now, no matter how he strived, he could not seem to please the king.

And Loki did strive, shamed himself with striving, like a beaten dog that whines for a kind touch from his master’s hand.

In Asgard, it was the rule that dumb beasts were to be shown respect, well housed, kindly tended—even their slaughter for the table swift and merciful. It was the way of his people, a rule from which, it seemed, only he and the Frost Giants were excepted.

It had been horribly hot through the day proceeding the ceremony, hot with a sticky, smelly heat made worse by the crowds, with all the strangers who had arrived, outlander monarchs and their retinues, nobles from far-flung parts of Asgard--and those of the Golden City itself, who turned out to see them. There was much drunkenness, and loud, unknown voices echoed everywhere from the walls.

Loki, in disgrace, upon this occasion, for telling lies (which were not lies in any way, only the strictest truth about what his present husband would term the “Birthday Boy,” and a cry, of sorts, for help that would never come to him, not in all his Asgardian days), lay under punishment from his mother the queen.

He had not been allowed to dine at the feast to honor Baldr and his guests, as his surviving brother did, only to wait at table, serving other princes, who poked at Loki, and tried to trip him up, laughing at him in their drunkenness if he stumbled.

Highborn princes did not serve, only the sons of lesser nobles, that was the rule. Yet a liar proved himself low by his falsehood, Frigga said, and became thus well-deserving of such a punishment.

“To be _ergi_ , Loki, is shame enough,” she lectured him. “To add to that disgrace the dishonor of false and wicked words…” She said no more after, only gazed at him with sternness in her lovely and much-loved face.

He looked within her mind and saw that she knew both what her eldest living son had become, and the hard truth of Loki’s words. She knew, and he had come to her hoping to be heard, yet she sat in judgment upon him, piling further disgrace upon the burning mound of disgrace and pain he continually felt.

That shame burned hotter still as he waited upon those king’s sons of far-off Realms. He had been made to wear the livery of the common servants, not that which the sons of nobles wore when performing such duties, serving dignitaries and kings, rich livery which proclaimed their noble blood and commanded a certain respect, even in the midst of their humble duties.

Loki had grown to a ridiculous height for his years--in all the court, only his brother, Thor, and the warrior Volstagg were taller--and that, with his extreme thinness, meant no garb could be found to fit him properly. He felt like one of those ridiculous beasts, the fabled giraffes of Midgard’s southlands, which he had seen in a book of pictures when he was a babe. The rough cloth itched against his skin.

The noise of the great room proved far too loud for Loki’s sensitive ears, causing a painful thumping within his head. It was also far too warm, alive with fire, ceremonial torches, the press of too many bodies, and being forced to remain on the run constantly from intolerable kitchens to over-hot feasting chamber soon had Loki panting, a deep sickness in his belly, his body running with sweat that only increased the itching from his livery.

Worst of all, Loki believed, was that every time he came within any nearness of the great _Jötnar_ treasure, the Casket of Ancient Winters--now on prominent display at the center of the chamber, along with other spoils of war piled high--an odd, sizzling faintness went through his brain. Yet at the same time, in that instant, he felt suddenly cool again, delightfully so—and also oddly powerful.

The _Jötnar_ , with faces of stone and hungry blood-coloured eyes, stood still at the side of the chamber, beside the stairs. They were not to eat with the other kings and princes.

“If you will dine like dogs upon raw flesh,” Odin had informed them, a ripple of general laughter rolling through the divers races, “Then with dogs alone you will share your dinners. Go to the kennels and meat will be brought you. Otherwise, you may stand here and starve amongst your betters.”

Laufey King, with his huge stature and great proud face, had turned his chill gaze downward upon the Allfather.

“Before all the True Gods of my Ancestors, Odin Borsson, by the blood-of-my-blood you shall burn. You shall burn like sticks in the fire.” Laufey King's red eyes narrowed. "And may that day fast approach us.”

But Odin and his nobles only laughed at the Giant king.

As Laufey and his tall young sons stood by the stair, the _Æsir_ and others threw hulls and pits and bones at them. The _Jötnar_ showed no response to this abuse, not so much as an eye-blink, only stood with hands at sides, staring into the middle air.

 _Learn from them,_ Loki commanded himself. _Learn from their stillness, their silence. Let no one see your rage, your fear, your hurt. If you cannot keep complete stillness, a jest will suffice, as witty as you can make it in the moment._

Loki had been one turning of the moon out of First Childhood when this occurred, for one turning wearing his manly tunic, for one turning commanded by his father to attend his brother Baldr daily, for the better improvement of his ever-faulty swordsmanship—though only one weapon was used by Baldr in those meetings, and it was not a weapon of steel.

He did not understand why the _Æsir_ around him so often treated him as they treated these unfortunate _Jötnar_. He did not understand what made him less than his brothers.

He understood nothing.

In the here-and-now, curled up in a comfortable bed in his dear husband’s miraculous tower, Loki answered his brother softly, “Yes, I remember. It was a confection of great beauty, Thor.”

Thor stared at him a moment, his mouth opening slowly.

“Oh, why did I mention the cursed thing?” he said at last, his voice breaking over the words. “Why am I ever thoughtless? I remembered only the excitement of the day, the joy of it all, the marvelous sugar castle, not...”

“My poor brother,” Loki said, stretching up a hand to summon Thor near. “It is like remembering Asgard itself—ever a picture of beauty in my mind, and yet…”

“And yet…” Thor agreed. He stretched out his massive form upon the bed and pressed his face hard into Loki’s chest.

Loki only wanted his brother to be happy on this day, not to fall into sorrow, and he forced himself to laugh, putting all the merriment he could summon into the noise.

“I just recalled your inept piloting of the _Svartalf_ ship across the Golden City, my brother, and how I nearly itched to get my hands on the controls. ‘How hard can it be?’ you asked, before knocking down each and every pillar in the palace, and half the civic buildings as well, the two of us squabbling like boys in First Childhood, wrangling over the piloting. How we have changed since that day, Thor!”

Thor twisted, studying Loki’s face. “'Well done,' you said to me, 'You just decapitated your grandfather!’ I did not laugh, but I wished to. You often made me wish to laugh, my brother. Far more often than you made me angry, or made me wish to weep. I do not think you have changed, Lolo. I think you now are as you always were, now that the time of great pain and rage are behind you.”

“Now that we two are free,” Loki said, as Thor laid his head once more upon his chest, and he stroked his brother’s long golden hair. "Do you think poor Bors has been given his head back yet? Such an affront to his kingly dignity!"

Thor huffed out a small chuckle. "Perhaps not. I thought I saw it shatter upon the stones below. That was great fun, Loki, in the midst of such serious times, though I did not like to admit it."

"It was great fun," Loki agreed, combing his fingers through his brother's hair, trying to work out the knots.

“And now, we are free,” Thor murmured. “Is he gone, Lo? Is he truly gone?”

Thor’s face pressed harder into Loki’s shirt. Loki felt the reluctance in him to speak the Allfather’s name as an almost physical thing. As if to give voice to the syllables would call Odin forth in the flesh again.

 _‘He who must not be named,’_ Loki thought, _Like the Dark Lord in Ms. Rowling's charming books._

“ _Nornir_ , how I loved and hated him!” Thor exploded, in a choked voice. “Yet between the two I hated him most of all. He was a monster, Loki, and I rejoice that you have done away with him. I truly rejoice in it. I rejoice also in you, my dear brother, in such a different way, that you have returned to us, for I feared you lost in that World of Tales far beyond where I could reach you. I would have gone to help you, or to ease your long time of waiting, if I could.”

“I know you would, dearest,” Loki said. "I know."

Thor wriggled up the bed a little, and Loki put his arms around him, as Thor put his arms around Loki. They held one another a long while, in silence.

“You remained with me every moment, Tony tells me,” Loki said at last. “Kindest of brothers.”

“I felt I must guard your body, my Loki. I must, until the time of your return.”

“Did you believe I would return?” Loki asked, stroking Thor’s hair again. “Your hair has become very tangled, brother. Beyond the aid of brush and comb, I fear. Shall I repair and plait it up for you?

"There must be some use for a brother so entirely _ergi_ ,” he added lightly.

“As when we were children?” Thor tipped up his head, resting his chin upon Loki’s chest, gazing into his eyes. “Nurse would do yours, after it grew long, but I would not allow her to touch mine. She pulled, as you never did. And you know I never cared that you were _ergi_. You were only my Loki, ever, and I loved you as you were, as I love you now.”

“I used magic, naturally.” Loki laughed. “As I will also do now, for there is, I fear, no other way. You do make rather a mess of yourself, Thor.” He drew a circle in the air with the smallest finger of his left hand. Thor’s hair reordered itself immediately, the dark-wheaten tresses arranging themselves into a plait of quite satisfying complexity within bare seconds.

Loki bent to plant a kiss on the top of Thor’s now-smooth head. “There, brother. You will not bring disgrace upon the family. And I love you also.”

Thor levered himself upward, laughing too, aloud, at the same moment he studied Loki’s face with anxious eyes. “Oh, but you do not bleed, brother! You do not bleed!”

“You called god-fire in excess down from the skies, dear Thor, and it moved through me at least a thousand times as I attended unto you in the park. I believe you ‘recharged my batteries’, as Tony might say. The Craft comes to me less easily than it once did, perhaps, but, oh my beloved brother, it comes easily! I have been testing it upon small matters as I lie here.”

“You must not drain your strength,” Thor told him with stern kindness, cupping Loki’s cheek in his vast, rough-palmed hand. “I am wise in few things, but in this I am correct. You are terribly thin, dear Loki, and appear so weary to my eyes.”

“I have traveled a long way on meagre provisions, _hjarta minn_ ,” Loki told him, “But I am well again, not as I was for so long. My mind bubbles with ideas, that I will make my bookstore a place of great joy, that many long to visit. That I shall paint and write and resume my teaching work without bitterness or fear. I feel also a great joy that small Edwin grows within me, for he is the child of my much-loved husband, and what now, in all the Realms has he to fear? We shall protect him, dear brother, and he shall grow to manhood clever, strong and loved—as shall all our dear children.”

Thor rested his head on Loki’s shoulder, muttering words whose meaning even Loki, with his most-excellent hearing, could not detect.

“What is that you say to me, Thor?”

Thor turned his face without raising his head. “I have lost her,” he said, sadly and simply. “I know not where, or to whom, but I have lost her.”

“Not Jane, surely, dear brother! I saw her only lately. We shared excellent sandwiches and spoke of the nature of stars. Jane, like my Tony, is extremely clever for a Midgardian. I grow to like her immensely.”

“Do you?” Thor asked. “It gladdens me to hear it. Yet it is not Jane I have lost, _Nornir_ be thanked. I have told my team of Avengers I have now become unarmed, and must, perforce, depart their company. Clint said unto me, ‘Big Guy, talk to your brother before you do anything drastic. He might have something to say about it.’ I had foolishly forgotten, you see, that you are properly king of Asgard by blood and inheritance, Loki, and therefore judge of my worthiness. Truly, I had no intention to commit the acts I did, and I wish with the whole of my heart to make amends.”

Loki laughed aloud, and Thor’s face crumpled into an expression of hurt.

“Loki, do you mock me?” he asked, in as small a voice of which he was capable. “For indeed the pain of losing her was great.

“My poor dear Thor,” Loki responded, trying his hardest not to laugh again. He took Thor’s hand with a gentle touch, meanwhile, with the other hand, reaching sideways into the most special and secure of his pocket universes, his fingers closing easily round Mjolnir’s leather-wrapped handle, bringing the hammer forth and laying her across his brother’s thigh.

“Oh, Loki!” Thor breathed, face beaming wonder and delight.

“I only kept her safe for you, dearest brother, when you were so ill and distraught in your mind. I knew your guilt would be great at the harming of innocents, and I would prevent both the harming and your following shame. It was only the purest chance of my extended absence that prevented her return."

Loki took Thor’s face between his hands, kissing his brow. “If all the world found you unworthy, still you would be worthy in my eyes, for you are my brother, my first—and for many years, only—friend, my ever-protector. Even in the times I envied you, and bitterness grew in my heart, making us seem enemies, I loved you still.”

“But I am not your brother, Lolo,” Thor said sadly, stroking Mjolnir with his fingertips. “The book…”

“The book is a good book, Thor. It has told the truth, and let me know my own, real father a little. It has given me greater strength, greater confidence, and taken from me much doubt and shame. And now our tormentor is gone from us, and with him much of our wrong thought and fear. But though the book says that you are my uncle by birth, in the truth of our hearts, you are my brother forever, Thor, and I am yours.”

Loki stroked Thor’s bristly cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Now you and Mjolnir should go and fly about the city with great joy, but do not by any means call down thunder or lightning from the skies. The good people of Manhattan have had enough of that for a time.”

Thor gave him a grin full of sunlight, knowing the teasing had only love behind it. He jumped to his feet.

“Brother, I shall do exactly that! And also shall I ring my school, and resume my studies as soon as I am allowed, and also implore dear Chef Emma that I may return to work. Her heart will fill with joy to hear you are so greatly improved, and will doubtless send many foods of great deliciousness home to you, for she esteems and likes you greatly.”

“And I will enjoy them greatly!” Loki answered, laughing. “But for now, I am a little weary, and would nap a short while. Go forth from me, ever-dearest brother. Be joyful, and fly!”

* * *

Kurt had slept long, and too-heavily, his mind filled with troubled dreams, when normally, he slept lightly, but well, curled up in Logan’s powerful arms.

He didn’t care for the after-feeling of weighty sleep. It left him with the sensation of…

 _Are you afraid to say it, Kurt?_ his inner voice asked him. _The sensation of being dead? Isn’t that what you mean?_

“ _Nein_ ,” Kurt told that voice, “I don’t mean to say that at all.” But that was a lie, and Kurt knew it.

“ _Nein_?” Logan rumbled from the corner. “What don’t ya mean to say, Kurt?” He didn’t sound angry or upset—there were many nuances to his deep, growly voice, for one who knew him well—merely curious. “Those were some dreams ya were enjoying, lover.”

“Enjoying is not quite the right word,” Kurt answered, stretching enormously, and yawning, before he bamfed over to his fiancé’s lap.

After wafting away the odors of sulphur and brimstone with one huge and powerful hand, he wrapped his vast arms tightly, tightly around Kurt’s more slender form, nuzzling into his neck.

Kurt felt a low-level hum, somewhere towards the back of his head, and knew that Loki had begun, once more, to drift toward sleep, that his mind held the peacefulness Kurt associated with his dear friend being engrossed in a film or a book—a book just now, he thought, from that particular resonance.

The touch Kurt sent back was soft, soothing, a mental lullaby of sorts. It wasn’t something they thought about, only something they did, and Kurt had missed it painfully.

 _Goodnight, sweet prince_ , he sent, and felt Loki’s drowsy smile in return.

The room was dark, the heavy curtains shut tight, yet, across from him, Logan’s eyes glinted. He made a solid, brooding shadow, like the shadow of a very short grizzly bear.

Kurt supposed Logan held him so tightly because just now, except for his own candleflame eyes, he would be entirely invisible, even to his lover’s preternaturally keen sight. Logan held him fast to reassure his senses, to reassure himself that Kurt was actually there with him.

After his long absence…

 _When you were dead?_ his helpful mind suggested.

When he was dead, _ja_ , and when he was lost in the Ironwood, in Latveria--those times had injured Logan (who healed so easily from every other injury) in ways even Kurt couldn’t totally comprehend.

Kurt ran his hand over Logan’s oddly poky hair, along his bristly (and somehow perfectly, perfectly Logan) muttonchop sideburns, down the rock-hard, corded muscle of his throat.

Everything about Logan was perfect to his touch, and to his sight. Just as his love for Logan felt perfect, both immensely complicated and reassuringly simple.

Kurt sighed, still a little tired, but contented.

“Have you been with me all this time?” he asked.

“Don’t flatter yerself,” Logan answered, with one of his deep, rusty-sounding laughs. “Been up to Salem Center. Someone has ta whip those damn kids into shape.”

“Not literally,” Kurt said, laughing himself.

Logan talked tough, but he was crazy about their students, he would give all he had to keep them safe—to make certain they could keep themselves safe. Kurt himself might have died a hundred times over, if not for the lessons taught him by his lover and friend.

“Not literally,” Logan admitted, with another rusty chuckle. “Been upstairs ta check in on Prince Charmin', too. He’s good. Happy. Smelled good, too. Healthier. Eatin' a lot. I’d bring him somethin' when ya go—he’ll thank ya.”

“Loki always thanks me. Effusively.” Kurt smiled. That was one of the many charming things about his friend—his beautiful manners. “However, ‘when’ I go, my love?”

“Ya’ll go.”

“Of course I will,” Kurt answered. “Why would I not go?” He felt the merest wriggling sense of irritation. “Logan, are you about to be foolish with me?”

“Uh,” was all Logan answered. “Forget I said a word. I’m not the smartest guy in the world.”

Kurt poked him hard with the tip of his tail.

“Ya think I haven’t noticed? Me? I smell him on ya constantly.”

Kurt’s jaw dropped. He felt his eyes go round.

 _How could…? Why would…?_ he asked himself. He had never known Logan to doubt him in any way, not as his friend, not as his lover. Why on earth would he begin now?

 _Natürlich_ , there were likely times Kurt wore Loki’s scent all over him, like the long coat he’d once worn to hide every possible bit of himself from observation (back in the days when he was always fearful, every moment he wasn't flying, supposedly costumed, high above the crowds in a hundred different cities). But how could Logan not know how innocent that was? How innocent they both were, chaste as little boys.

Scott had accused him once, in a way he fully intended as cruel, of being a "people pleaser," but that was a falsehood, a misunderstanding of his nature and an indication not so much of Kurt’s own character but of his once-hero’s slide from the grace of a courageous and noble nature into an attitude of cold expediency, ends justifying any means. He missed his teammate, his brother, his friend (who he doubted could ever be his friend again), still.

Kurt mourned Scott now as he might mourn the dead.

It was not a need to please, to be accepted at any cost, that made Kurt who he was, only that he felt so much of what others felt—when they needed cheering, when they needed kindness. When the children at the school were cold, hungry, ill, homesick, he knew their needs and cared for them as best he could, which most times proved to be rather well, Kurt thought.

He didn’t mean to be conceited, but he believed it a good skill--to care, and to express his caring in ways that were thoughtful and useful.

Loki was Kurt’s grand project, his magnum opus, his masterwork, because Loki was himself so brave and good. So beautiful, also, and yet so cruelly broken.

With Loki, Kurt felt like an archaeologist who has discovered the broken bits of an ancient and priceless artifact, and devotes his time, piece by painstaking piece and with all the skill at his disposal, to restoring its full worth.

That Logan would question this work, or his innocent, tender, physical love for Loki, which never once spilled over into anything erotic or even… sensual? Was that the word he wanted? They shared senses, certainly, but carnal pleasures never once entered into their affection. That was understood between them, always, since their days as prisoners within that hellish cell where they first met.

A sense of disappointment sizzled through Kurt’s body, and his darkness-attuned eyes stared into the face of the man he loved above all others. That Logan would feel jealousy, that he would question Kurt’s integrity, his commitment to their union, that he misunderstood what Kurt was to Loki, and Loki to him, so completely…

Kurt was stunned. His chest pained him, as if his physical heart had become heavy and sore.

He knew that the wise thing would be to stop, take a few breaths, regain his composure, then talk things through like adults, but he was so tired, and had been for such a long time now, it seemed, as well as so sad.

He stared a long moment at his love, knowing, even, the right words to say, yet too heart-wounded to say them.

 _Loki loves you like a father, Logan,_ Kurt might say, _And would never dream to hurt you. Do you honestly believe he would deceive Tony, or that I would deceive you?_ Ach du lieber, _Logan. It’s laughable, that’s what it is. Laughable._

But in the end Kurt said nothing, innocent in his heart to the point that even the thought of having to protest his innocence revolted him.

He could only bamf away, zeroing in, for once, not on a place, but on a person, the one person who never, never misunderstood him.

Even as he hung, just for the moment, in that desert-blasted and sulfurous place between, that red land of his father, the land of the Neyaphem, Kurt felt his heart tear raggedly in two.

Logan had picked himself up, and was in the act of leaving the tower.

Well, why wouldn’t he, really? Why wouldn’t he?

 _Circus-boy,_ the voice said in Kurt's head.

 _Circus clown_.

 _Circus freak_.

_What do you even have to offer him?_


	3. Stories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki gets a chance to console Kurt. Loki and Hela bring each other up to speed on recent events.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the Marvel Universe, Amos Jardine is a Texan millionaire with a circus obsession. After purchasing Max Getmann's Circus, where Kurt Wagner was the star acrobat and trapeze artist, he locked Kurt in a cage as a freak show attraction instead.
> 
> In A.A. Milne's _Winnie the Pooh_ books, "Silly old bear" is an affectionate name Christopher Robin has for his best friend, Pooh.

* * *

Loki wasn’t alone, Kurt found.

Loki _so_ completely wasn’t alone, he had all four of his children lined up on the bed, his husband holding his hand, and Hank McCoy performing an ultrasound with the portable machine, Loki arranged face down on his stomach surrounded by an assortment of pillows.

Kurt—unusually, for himself, being not much in the mood for sociability--would have backpedaled and bamfed away immediately if Hank hadn’t cheerfully called out, “Kurt, hello!” before the puff of brimstone even dispersed, as which point he felt he had no choice but to stay.

Ultrasounds were hard on Loki. Kurt most likely would have lingered anyway, out of a sense of protectiveness for his dear friend. Just to be with Loki again, his _real_ Loki, after missing him for so long. To see his loved, familiar face bright with life and joy restored more than a bit of Kurt’s emotional equilibrium. The anger--against Logan, against himself--remained, but he found himself able to push it by force from the foreground of his mind and into the back of his head. It felt better there, shut up in a distant place like row upon row of iron cages. Contained where he didn't have to look at it, allowing Kurt to be more his usual self again.

Sometimes Kurt thought that if he released all the anger-beasts from their distant cages at once, the force of them, combined, might destroy the entire circus. He tried to tend them carefully, but also kept their enclosures strong, just to prevent such misfortune.

He found a seat between Hela and Sleipnir and took Loki’s other hand. Even though he’d been helping Sleip with his lessons, the teenager didn’t know Kurt as well as the younger boys did. Hela tended to be a bit more… self-absorbed. Neither were likely to give him away.

Loki wore a pair of industrial-duty noise-cancelling earphones so that the sound waves (completely audible to him, though not to his children or the humans present), wouldn’t injure his far-more-sensitive-than-Midgardian ears. He also appeared mildly sedated, because ultrasound waves, painless to everyone else, caused Loki almost unbearable discomfort. He looked, at the minute, both blissful and pained, biting back on the latter for the children’s sake as Hank moved the scanner gently over his bare but slickly gelled back.

“Oh, Jesus!” Tony said suddenly. “Is that…? Lok, he’s big! Way bigger than I expected!” Not even on his wedding day had Kurt seen such a wide and goofy grin on Tony’s face.

“Meet Edwin, your brother, dearest children.” Loki said, even more blissful. “My most-loved husband, your son. He appears perfect, Hank. Is he perfect?”

“He looks fantastic to me, Loki,” Hank answered, smiling. He tended to be somewhat gruff with most others (and sometimes even unnecessarily stern with poor Tony), but unfailingly quite gentle with Kurt's dearest friend.

He powered down the machine after one more pass. Loki gave a sigh of pure relief.

“A strong, healthy little boy, Stark family. I don’t see any problems with his growth whatsoever. You, my friend," he said to Loki, "May get up tomorrow, but I want you to take it _very_ easy. Lots of good food, lots of rest, _no_ stress, gentle exercise only—I’m leaving it up to Kurt to ride herd on you—and stay hydrated, yes? How’s the morning sickness?”

“It continues.” Loki, despite his slightly awkward position, lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “However, much improved. I enjoy the crystallized ginger you gifted to me, Hank, and it has proved of great help.” He grinned at the kids, “When nimble-fingered small monkeys—and larger ones, I might also say--do not pilfer it from the jar because they have a taste for it as well.”

“What? It’s good stuff!” Tony said, laughing. “But, hey, do you know what else I hear little monkeys like to eat?”

“Ice cream!” Fen crowed. It seemed to be one of his favorite answers to virtually any question.

“Guess who read my mind, Mr. Fenrir?” Tony laughed. “Probably literally, I guess. Who wants to go snag Auntie Jane and Uncle Thor? Hank, you’re coming too. Let’s bring _Pabbi_ back the weirdest flavor we can find, okay?”

“If you bring me the flavour of bubblegum with popping rocks within it again,” Loki called out in the midst of a flurry of hugs and kisses, “Prepare to meet my wrath, much-loved family. My revenge shall be swift and terrible.”

“ _Pop Rocks_ , Lok.” The look Tony gave his husband was loving, but amused, “Just Pop Rocks.”

“Whatever you may call them, I feared my teeth had begun to explode, and could not think of the reason.” Behind his tone of mock-scolding, Loki’s eyes sparkled with fun. The light Kurt had noticed in him earlier seemed to shine everywhere, brightening the room, illuminating the faces of his family.

Tony paused, watching his husband, serious for that moment, perhaps basking in the glow. “I love you more than life, Lok,” he said. “You know that, don’t you? How completely much I love you?”

Loki’s smile, in return, said everything that needed to be said.

With that, they were gone.

Loki flipped over, adjusting his light t-shirt. His eyes—surprisingly, deep green again, sought Kurt’s. “My joy is so great,” he said, “It gives me extra sorrow that you are sad, my dearest friend. How could Logan use such words with you? Would that I might shout at him very loudly within his head!

"And you, Kurt…” Loki’s hands cupped his face. “My beautiful Kurt. My wonderful Kurt. Best of all Kurts that ever were, and best of all men. How could you use such words with yourself?”

“My lovely, silly Loki.” Kurt squeezed his hands lightly. “You give me too much praise, I think.”

“Such a thing would never be possible,” Loki answered, pretending to be stern. “Oh, Kurt, come lie beside me. Would you hear of my adventuring in the other world?”

Kurt sighed, the beast he'd just caged rattling its bars loudly, then tried to make his voice light again, shooting for irony. “But what would Logan say?”

He must have overshot his goal. Loki’s voice, and his face, turned fierce. “I care not! I care not!”

His posture changed in an instant from languid to tense, as if, at any minute, he’d have to fight some formidable enemy—to the death, if need be, and without hesitation.

At the same instant Kurt seemed to lose all his own steam. He sank back against the headboard by Loki's side, wanting badly to weep—was that what Loki called being _ergi_?—but not wanting to upset his friend further.

“Worry not about me,” Loki said softly. “Have I caused this breaking in you, Kurt? Have I injured you and Logan, whom I also greatly esteem, despite my formidable anger against him at this moment? I shall put thoughts in his head, Kurt. I shall, for I am very strong in these days.”

For once, Kurt had no idea what his friend meant. Loki often said things that, while perfectly worded, did not have a meaning human beings could comprehend, or even half-humans such as himself.

He was sorting through the possible meanings, like trying to tease out the snarls in a badly-tangled skein of yarn, when sweet Mrs. Ransome appeared with a large tray of little savory tarts.

Loki was instantly diverted. In between scoffing them up in the most mannerly way possible, he told her about his ultrasound. Saying nothing about the pain, only about his beautiful Edwin.

“And I did not hurt him, Thea. I did not!” Loki told her, and if baby Edwin was beautiful, his _Pabbi_ was… for a few minutes, words failed Kurt, in all his languages.

If the baby was beautiful, Loki was nearly unbearable in his radiance.

It made Kurt so angry at Logan, the cage bars rattled as if a thousand fierce tigers sought to escape them, making such a noise he could scarcely think.

 _How could he? How could he?_ Kurt ranted internally.

How could Logan, who first taught him to be ever, only, exactly who he really was--of all people!—not want him to be himself? It was… inconceivable.

“’Inconceivable!’” Loki exclaimed, quoting this time. He was a master mimic, and perfectly replicated the whining, fussy, petulant voice of Vizzini, from _The Princess Bride_ , complete with anachronistic American accent.

“’You keep using that word,’” Kurt returned, in Inigo Montoya’s questionable Spanish accent, happy to play the game with his loving friend, who only wished to comfort his sad mood. “’I do not think it means what you think it means.’”

“Oh, dear Kurt,” Loki said with a sigh. “Even when you are so downhearted you indulge me in my foolishness.”

“You’re trying to cheer me up, Lo. That’s not foolish, it’s kind.”

 _To the very depths of hell with what Logan thinks about it_ , Kurt told himself. _He’s right about a lot of things, but he’s not right about this._

The caged beasts gave a last defiant rattle, and were still.

He stretched out on the bed, his head on Loki’s shoulder. Loki drew the duvet over them both, then wrapped Kurt up in his strong, thin arms, kissing Kurt's forehead.

“You are still weary,” his friend said. “Whilst you rest, I shall send you sweet dreams.”

Kurt had to admit, he _was_ weary. Except for last night’s hard, dream-filled sleep, he’d literally only taken cat-naps for weeks, and he felt the lack of good, solid rest keenly.

Warm and secure, he did sleep, and in his dreams he was sometimes a toddler, sometimes a boy, sometimes a very young man, strolling the sawdust-strewn aisles of a world full of brightness and cheerful noise, surrounded by a merry throng from all the countries of Europe, and other continents besides, who taught him both their languages and their panoply of skills—who juggled with him, tumbled with him, laughed at his jokes and his harmless pranks. Who told him marvelous tales as they all sat together, sewing spangles onto costumes as the caravans rolled. An extended family that did not care if that he was furry and blue, or that his eyes glowed yellow or that he had a tail.

To them he was only Kurti, their handsome boy, their good boy blessed by God with miraculous skills, one of them always, a much-loved member of their great, wandering, close-knit, flamboyant family.

He had never been a freak to them, or to the audiences who sat below him, mouths open in O’s of wonder, entranced and astonished by the fireworks of motion his body made through the air.

Only Amos Jardine ever called him that word, and being a cruel man, having a certain power over others’ lives, made Jardine no less a fool.

“We are not what the ignorant make of us, Kurt,” Professor Xavier once said to him, and whose words was he going to believe? The words of an idiot, a blowhard, a bully, or the words of his much-loved _Herr_ Professor?

Kurt remembered flying without a net, high, high up beneath the big top. Knowing he was safe, because Walther and his crew never failed to string the rigging strongly and perfectly, knowing that Alfonso, and Zbignew, would always, always catch hold of his outstretched hands. Kurt never feared, because he never doubted.

And inside his head, inside his dreams, the voice of a kind young god of ancient days whispered to him, Never doubt, never fear, my Kurt, my _hjarta minn_. Like those good folk of your younger days, my hands are always outstretched to yours. I will always catch you, as you have so often caught me, dearest friend. I will never allow you to fall.

* * *

Tony tended to be what those of Midgard called a “night owl,” not caring, most nights, if he took to bed in the early hours of morning, or at all. This night, however, by the time they finished an extremely pleasant family dinner (including Kurt, Bruce, and good Dr. Selvig, but not including Sherlock, though he remained within the tower and Loki implored him to attend), Tony had begun to yawn.

When the children were well-snuggled and filled up with stories, though not, perhaps, the story, Hela, at the very least, wished most to hear, Tony was entirely unable to keep his eyes open, and his yawns had begun to sound painful.

“Let us tuck the children snuggly into their beds, my brother,” Thor offered. He had listened to the stories as avidly as any of the younglings, squeezing Jane’s hand in the midst of the exciting bits as she gazed at him with a sweetness Loki felt glad to see.

Jane had always seemed to Loki a comely woman, but the carrying of his brother’s children in her belly leant to her a radiance truly lovely to behold. He found himself nearly every bit as excited for the birth of Thor and Jane’s small boy and small girl as he felt for the coming of his and Tony’s own sweet Edwin.

He found the joy of this anticipation at times so intense, indeed, Loki could not prevent himself from smiling.

He anticipated, too, Thor and Jane’s upcoming nuptials, for Jane and Hela, at dinner, had spoken at length about the designing of a dress. Loki and Bruce had spoken also of what might be done about Bruce’s flat, since it was to be made over by Tony’s command.

Poor Tony, though he tried very hard to remain considerate, and kind, clearly found these topics tiresome in the extreme, and had Erik and Jöri not been present to speak to him of scientific theory, he might well have fallen fast asleep with his face in his plate.

“You are very kind,” Loki said, in response to their offer. “Best of brothers. Best of sisters.” He smiled at Jane and she smiled back, clearly startled, yet just as clearly pleased. “Go with your aunt and uncle, children, if you will.”

“Will _Afi_ Erik come too, _Pabbi_?” Sleipnir latched onto one of the old man’s hands.

Fen caught the other. “Tell, ’When I was a boy in Sweden?’ Please?”

“Oh, my rapacious ones, are you not stuffed full of stories by this time?” Loki asked. “Perhaps _Afi_ Erik is weary?”

Loki’s answer gained him only four pairs of puppy’s eyes gazing at him in mute supplication—the three boys’ and the elderly man’s. Only Hela held back.

“But one story and only one, then,” Loki at last agreed, and then merely because of the lurking disappointment in Erik Selvig’s face. He had grown up in a family of brothers, Loki saw, but now they were gone from him, and sorely missed. He once had married a sweet girl from his native land, but neither had she lived, nor the little boy within her. So much loss in Erik’s long mortal years. So much loss and sorrow intermingled with his joys.

 _Erik_ , Loki said gently within the old man’s head, _You have sacrificed so much for me and would accept neither boon nor payment. You have given us all back our lives, yet I must ask of you now another favor. Please consider our home your home, be a second father to me, one kind, wise and truthful. Be a grandfather to my children, who love you dearly. Travel as you will, but always know home awaits at the end of your road_.”

“Say yes, please, _Afi_ Erik?” Jöri implored. “Please?”

“Oh, say yes!” the other two boys chimed in.

Erik gazed a long while into Loki’s eyes before, at last, a smile began to tremble on his lips.

“And if you are grandfather to my brother’s children, you must be grandfather to mine as well,” Thor said. “My Lady Jane and I are in perfect agreement. You are of our house and family for every day that you live, and your name shall be written in the rolls of our ancestors and sung when they sing of us in the sagas.”

Erik and Loki traded a glance, both loving and amused, that clearly expressed, _Oh, Thor! Silly old bear!_

“Ah, my friends—grandfather to the children of the old gods. How can I refuse?” He patted Thor’s great arm blindly, tears suddenly filming his eyes. “How can I refuse? You are good fellows, both, and I am very proud of you.”

Erik became suddenly brisk, shooing the boys before him. “Now come, come, my young gentlemen! Away to your tower of terror, and I’ll tell you about the old country, and the time I…”

The rest of his words were lost to distance as the boys, Thor and Jane followed him away.

Tower of terror, indeed! Tony had told him of the bunkbed game, and Loki thought it sounded marvelous fun. Like his husband before him, he had not the heart to curtail their joy, even if it was clearly dangerous, and was glad he had set their beds properly to rights again. Now he was well (or nearly well), he could easily heal any harm that befell them.

Bruce grinned at them both, and with a nod toward Tony, now locked fast within the bonds of sleep, waving to Loki a silent “good night” before ambling off toward his flat.

“I’m for bed too,” Kurt said, enfolding Loki within a warm embrace. “Your offer’s tempting, Lo. It really is, but I’m going back to our place. The other way… staying here… it would feel a bit like hiding, _vielleicht_. Or sulking. I’ll do neither.”

He fetched one of the snack boxes Thea had made ready for Loki within the small refrigerator Tony had installed in the wardrobe. “Now, have a little something to eat, talk to your daughter and I’ll see you in the morning, _Lieber Freund.”_

Kurt bamfed away, leaving Hela fanning at the resulting fumes of sulfur and brimstone with her hand, her eyes watchful and sad.

“Please, sit again, my dearest.” Loki patted the bed beside him.

Hela sat, her lovely small face unreadable. Asgard had changed her, as Loki had perhaps known it must. Likely it changed everyone who dwelt within its borders, and perhaps not always for the better. He stretched out his hand. “Will you show me, my best love, what transpired in that time you were gone away?”

“Only if…” Hela began.

“Hela,” Loki interrupted softly. Her great green eyes turned to his. “Do you truly believe I would keep that story from you?” he asked. “That story of all stories? Who will you trust, in all the worlds, if you trust in me no more? I fully admit my wrong in sending you forth.”

He stroked her long, curling black hair, so like his own, then cupped the curve of her pale cheek. “Like as we are, I cannot pretend I know what is to be you, my darling one—so young, so clever, so full of knowing. I was very foolish indeed when I was in my first years, and it served me ill, but perhaps to be so full of wisdom when you have spent so little time in the world is as much a curse as my foolishness.”

Loki sighed. “Whatever will we do with ourselves, my darling girl? You have lived so little time, yet are so wise, and so old. I have lived so many years, seen much, done much, for good or ill, yet am scarcely more than a boy still. I would guide you truly, yet do not always know how it should be done. I can only tell you what I have experienced.”

“Oh, _Pabbi_.” Hela sighed too. “Don’t think that I’m angry with you. Please don’t. I only think that I’m experiencing a certain… chagrin? Is that the word I wish to use?”

Loki nodded. “I believe it may well be, dearest Hela.”

“I enjoyed so much spending time with my Sisters, the other Deaths, and with my namesake, the Queen. I felt witty, clever, powerful—nearly omnipotent, I must confess—yet I was not all I thought myself to be. I was mistaken in the Allfather. I thought him a dotard and a fool, yet he was neither of those things. He—to use dad’s phrase, “played me”—and I fell for it. I disregarded all your warnings, _Pabbi_.

"I thought so well of myself," Hela continued, after a moment had passed. "I felt pity for you, where I ought to have felt sympathy, or perhaps it’s empathy I mean. I thought myself better than you.”

Hela touched Loki’s cheek in return, stroking it softly with her fingertips. “After all you have suffered, and survived, yet you still love, still laugh, still see beauty in the worlds, are still a loving _Pabbi_ to us all, a husband, a brother, a friend… I still thought myself better. I regret to tell you, dearest _Pabbi_ , but your only daughter is quite a fool indeed.”

“No, Hela. No.” Loki, studying her earnest, upturned face, smiled a little. “One who learns, who is able to learn, and walk away holding within, the thought, _I will do better. Another time, I will do better_ , can never be entirely a fool. Better to call us ‘students.’ Learners. Scholars, perhaps, and our universities are life and the worlds.”

His smile broadened. “We are sometimes slow to learn our lessons, but we _will_ learn them, I am sure of it.  Meanwhile, feel no shame, dearest. All is accomplished that we set out to do, and all lives, I believe, are better for our acts. That is something of which we might be proud, now and always.”

“Yes,” Hela replied. “Okay. I guess it is.”

Loki closed her small, soft, gloved hands within his own much larger ones, feeling how his daughter did, in truth, love him, did, in truth, trust him.

Their minds, so like and so unlike, touched gently.

Throughout what remained of the night, they lived one another’s stories.


	4. It's Not Easy Being Green

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock is quite annoyed to sense something odd atop the tower. Tony and Loki enjoy some perfectly (almost) ordinary moments. Loki presents Bruce with a very big decision, as well as some attractive fabric swatches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _The Very Hungry Caterpillar_ , first published in 1969, is a charming children's picture book designed, illustrated and written by Eric Carle.
> 
> Like Tony, I played an angel in my elementary school's 4th Grade production of _Märchenoper_ (fairy tale opera) _Hansel and Gretel_ (written by Engelbert  
>  Humperdinck 1893). The actual words of the song are:
> 
> _When at night I go to sleep,_  
>  _Fourteen angels watch do keep:_  
>  _Two my head are guarding,_  
>  _Two my feet are guiding,_  
>  _Two are on my right hand,_  
>  _Two are on my left hand,_  
>  _Two who warmly cover,_  
>  _Two who o’er me hover,_  
>  _Two to whom ‘tis given to guide my steps to heaven_

* * *

“It smells… funny,” Sherlock said, his face creased with disgust, or possibly deep confusion.

The moon, high now above the tower, shone in his eyes, turning their pale irises to twin mirrors, in the same way the moon over Cardiff, London, or Oxford, calling to Sherlock’s father in the night, would shine in his eyes and turn them even more otherworldly than their accustomed otherworldliness.

Sherlock himself had been conceived on such a night, as Loki recalled, he and Myrddin lying in the long, fragrant grasses of summer, their bodies all silver and sharp-edged shadows, as the full moon rose high above the field.

Strange how such memories now struck Loki only with their sweetness, no longer causing the old familiar ache in the core of his heart. His love for Myrddin had not lessened, or faded, would likely never fade, but he felt, in a way, that he had been released. He trod a pathway forward into the future, moving with quick and eager steps, no longer dragged down into the past by shackles of loss and pain.

“The smell is like yours, in the oddest way,” Sherlock continued. “Yet… not. Your scent is pleasant, brisk. This…”

Frowning, he paced out a circle of moderate size, nearer to the left hand side of the roof than to the right.

“I do not accept, of course, that what causes the odor, or the...oddly _electrical_ sensation one experiences in this particular area of the roof is magic, despite what you tell me,” he concluded.

“What do you call it then, my son?” Loki asked, both pleased that his offspring was able to detect the subtle difference in the world around them, the exact spot where the dark things came through, and slightly dismayed with himself for bringing his son to the top of the tower.

Sherlock possessed such a curious mind, in both senses of the word—and he did enjoy to experiment. What Sherlock did _not_ enjoy was to be held in bonds by sober judgment or wise advice.

Not that Loki did not (from time to time) question what sort of sober judgment or wise advice he--one almost universally known as the “god of mischief”--could actually be qualified to give.

 _And you imagine Sherlock would content himself to be constrained in any way?_ Loki asked himself, with some amusement. _When he is the child of you and of Myrddin? You know it is quite apt that you were called what you were called, and that Myrddin was named Merlin the Wild. There were excellent reasons no one knew you as Loki, God of Sobriety, or your dear love as Myrddin the Restrained._

Loki found himself laughing, covering his mouth to hold back the sound. He felt so well, and his life now appeared so fine as it stretched before him. It made him feel merry, perhaps merrier than Sherlock would truly appreciate at this, or any other time.

“What are you laughing at? Me?” Sherlock regarded him with some suspicion.

“Never, dear son,” Loki answered, schooling his features into a semblance of attentive interest.

“As I was saying,” Sherlock continued, with great severity, like a professor rudely interrupted by an unruly student as he lectured. “I might call it an advanced form of physics, perhaps, which…”

“Is known as magic,” Loki teased.

He could not help himself, for he found it difficult, at times, not to lovingly tease his son. It gladdened him that Sherlock had John, not only because every person ought to have that one friend who perfectly suits, but because John made Sherlock laugh, and Sherlock was lovely when he laughed.

His son laughed now, unexpectedly.

“I suppose, honestly, it might as well be. Physics or magic, it’s beyond my understanding, and it’s not as if you can show me the maths. _Nothing_ , you realize, is ordinarily beyond my understanding.”

“I am a sore trial to you and Tony both.” Loki laughed again then, too. “He is fully convinced that if I could only put what I do into proper calculations, I would change the world. And perhaps I would, yet I remain unconvinced that I would want it changed in that way. Let the mystery remain, I say.”

“It bothers me that I can feel the… difference.” Sherlock scuffed the toe of his highly polished oxford within the boundaries of the circle he had paced.

“I can even say that it feels a little unused, a little… dusty. It’s all so damned nebulous, _Pabbi._ I want to be able to take measurements, perform tests, yet all I have to fall back on is this vague… feeling, almost like an emotion. It’s so-- what does your husband say?—‘touchy-feelie.’” He shuddered. “I have an absolute horror of ‘touchy-feelie’ things.”

Loki laughed a third time, in delight. “Sherlock, you have called me _‘Pabbi_!’”

“It’s what the others call you,” Sherlock answered crossly, though Loki knew he was not truly cross. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“You are my beloved son. It gives me great gladness that you would call me by that name, just as your brothers and sister do.” Loki took his son’s arm, resting his cheek against Sherlock’s shoulder. Sherlock wore a fine cologne which reminded Loki of autumn. The fabric of his dark coat felt soft against his skin as the downy wool of lambs.

“I am sorry that you leave us with the sunrise,” Loki said. “It was kind, that you would come to say goodbye to me. Yet instead we had joy, I am well, and we have had this time.”

He continued to hold his son’s arm, to rest against his son’s shoulder, feeling the strength in him, that Sherlock was thin but powerful, as he was, or had been—as he would be again. A silence fell, but not an uncomfortable one.

Sherlock had not even stiffened, or pulled away from his touch, and Loki took that as a fine victory.

“I love you,” Loki said after a time. “Yet quite like you as well, my son. You have an interesting mind, clever and singular, and the rare power to surprise me. Be well as you travel, Sherlock, and as you live. Think of me, now and then, and of your brothers and sister who care for you. Return to us when you can, and we shall journey also to you. For you are of us, remember that. As the stars are never alone in the sky, so are you never alone.”

Just for an instant, Sherlock set his hand on Loki’s back, between his shoulders, the closest he might ever come to an embrace.

“Do you trust my instincts?” he asked, gravely, after a little time had passed.

“I do,” Loki answered readily, curious as to his son’s meaning. “I do, Sherlock. Truly.”

“I have no proof, and I hate not having proof. But it seems… I feel… There is something wrong here, _Pabbi_. Something waiting and watching, especially, perhaps, for you.”

* * *

Tony glanced up from his welding to see his husband watching him, perched on the edge of a workbench and eating a sandwich.

He shut off the gas at once, the torch-flame dying a second later.

Tony pulled off his goggles. “Baby! How long have you been there?”

“For a length of time equal to half a sandwich. It is of bacon, lettuce and tomato, and Thea says it is not of great nutritive value, but Edwin is sad that his brother has gone this morning, and so we are eating for comfort, as Thor does from time to time, instead of for sustenance. This may well be, I must say, the most delicious thing I have ever eaten."

He took a large bite, and Tony nearly burst out laughing. Who knew a BLT had the power to bring out something so close to Loki's orgasm face?

"I can tell you're enjoying it," he told Loki instead, to spare his husband's feelings.

Loki chewed slowly and contemplatively, and when he was through, said, "In your welding goggles you look like a man of Steampunk, and it makes me desirous to see you in an elaborate waistcoat and a top hat. For next Halloween may we dress so? You will look exceedingly handsome.”

Tony lost all interest his project and came around the end of the bench to wrap his arms around his husband and nuzzle close. “Mmn, you smell like bacon. I could eat you up.”

“Is it cannibalism if we are of different yet compatible species?” Loki pondered.

Tony laughed, and hopped up on the bench beside him, swinging his feet like a kid. He felt downright bubbly. The last visit Loki had made to his workshop, sometime before Christmas and back in Tony's days of drunkenness and mind control, they'd had a horrible fight (totally Tony's fault) followed by an even more horrible scene (involving the kids, and equally Tony's fault, if not more so) upstairs. Loki hadn't been back since.

To have him here now, cheerful, well, totally relaxed, was like some kind of wonderful dream.

“No idea,” Tony answered, grinning like a fool.

“Your mother came of Southern European heritage," his husband continued, with one of those rapid changes of subject that sometime made him feel like Wile E. Coyote after Road Runner has just dashed by.

"Yup," he answered. "From Palermo, if I remember right. Not that she was born in Italy, or her folks. Her grandparents--both sets--emigrated from Sicily, though."

"Was Howard of Northern European stock? ‘Stark’ has the sound of an English name, and yet it might have been Anglicized. Was it German, perhaps? Kurt reminds me that the German word _stark_ means strong. Or perhaps intense. You are sometimes intense. You are also often strong for me. And now..." Loki took his hand. "I will often be strong for you, also.”

“You always were, my dearest love, more so than you should have to be. About my father's family, I have no idea. He might have been cultivated in a cabbage patch for all he told me.” Tony laughed. “And this is reason one thousand why I missed you like hell, Lok, and I'm not mocking. I mean it sincerely. The wonderful sheer randomness. I constantly remind myself that you’re showing restraint, asking about three things when you’re actually thinking of a hundred. Would you like to explain the reason behind this line of questioning?”

“I have been reading,” Loki said. “Were you aware that the Chinese and those of Northern European ancestry are likely to have over one per cent Neanderthal DNA? Perhaps as much as one point one seven per cent for Europeans, and seventy per cent of the DNA for your skin and hair. Is that not interesting? Edwin is fascinated by cave people at the moment, Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis in particular, and wonders if Bruce could be convinced to run your genotype.”

“Tell our son it’s his lucky day,” Tony licked lightly up the side of Loki’s neck and gave a soft bite to his earlobe, making his husband squirm with delight. Loki was so tactile, so responsive to touch, especially in his current state, and Tony couldn’t resist making him a little crazy, now and then. He found himself more than loving having a sturdy, high-spirited, joyful Loki as a playmate.

“Which is to say Hank already genotyped me, to make sure we wouldn’t have problems. Offspring problems, that is.”

Loki ran a protective hand over the curve of his belly. “Tony…”

“C’mon, you heard what Hank said. Edwin’s great. He’s perfect. His only concern is that the baby’s growing so fast, and that has more to do with you, making sure you get all you need, than anything to do with him.”

“He is happy, I want you to know that. His mind is bright and curious. He is a good boy. A good, good boy, Tony.”

Tony kissed his shoulder. “Lok, I know that. He’s a baby. What else would he be? Is there some dire prophecy I don’t know about, or something?”

“No, belovéd, no prophecy.” Loki did one of his million mile stares into the distance, chowing down pensively on the rest of his sandwich.

Christ, there was a lot of mayo on that thing. Hank said the reason for Loki craving fats like a crazy person at the moment was his body trying to build up reserves, of which it currently had none. Hence, Tony supposed, Loki’s drippy BLT.

“Then what is it, my Very Hungry Caterpillar?”

“I am thankful you did not call me your Hungry Hungry Hippo, as in the foolish but amusing children's game. I might have found the comparison insulting, as I have not yet waxed so large."

Tony took his husband's still far-too-skinny hand. "I could stand to see you wax a hell of a lot larger, baby."

"Ah, beloved, my hormones--as Hank _will_ call them--cause me needless worry about many things. The absence of Logan, for one. He has made my Kurt sad, and me quite angry with him, and I do not enjoy to be angry, especially at this time of many joys. I have just been to visit James “Bucky” Barnes, and he improves tremendously since my return, to the point that Stephen wishes to discuss if he may be allowed out from the Hulk Tank for slowly increasing periods of time. Oh, and in the afternoon Kurt and I will go to visit my bookstore, and Supervisor Jorge will bring the children by for a field trip, that I may read them many stories. How I long to behold them!”

Those big, malachite eyes turned to Tony’s, brimming with emotion. “Oh, _hjarta hjarta minn_ , despite needless worry and missing Sherlock and feeling so furious with Logan, I am terribly happy. So immensely, unbelievably happy. And I do not wish to also feel fearful.”

For once, Tony thought he could maybe congratulate himself that he understood what his husband was trying to tell him. Loki couldn't help but be afraid of it all going away, like every other speck of happiness he’d ever snatched from the universe. Loki couldn’t stop waiting for the other shoe to drop, and drop hard.

Tony wrapped his husband up tight in his arms. “Gods, Lok, don’t be afraid. Please don’t. You know I’d do everything in my power to make your life good. You also know the big reason things went bad for you in the past…”

Loki sniffled slightly. “He Who Must Not Be Named.”

“Yup, He Who Must Not Be Named.” Tony gave a soft laugh. “Anyway, remember, he’s a thing of the past. He can’t hurt you. He’s gone up in smoke. Literally.”

“Literally,” Loki echoed, pushing back a lock of hair that had worked loose from his braid. “Yes. What you say is true.”

“You look tired, babe. Are you tired?”

“A little,” Loki admitted, which actually meant “very” in Lokispeak.

“Have I introduced you yet to the Fabulous Stark Workshop daybed? Comes complete with a stunning corner-of-the-shop location, and mismatched sheets.”

Tony slid down from the benchtop and Loki slid with him, still holding tight to Tony's hand.

“Then I need not leave you? I would not interfere with your work if I remained?”

“Number one, I’m tinkering, waiting for my mind to kick out ideas. Number two, you inspire me. Now, have a nice nap. I think you’ll find the daybed homely, yet surprisingly comfortable.”

“Homely may also mean homelike, or comforting,” Loki informed him, as he kicked off his shoes and crawled in.

The bed was a little short for Loki's height, but since his husband tended to sleep curled up like a hedgehog, Tony didn’t really see that as a problem. Tony tucked Loki in beneath the ugly brown-and-blue plaid comforter, his husband already almost drifting off from the moment he snuggled in.

He looked so peaceful, so content, and yet Tony also had to force himself to be there in that moment, not off chasing troubles that might never come. It wasn’t that he was a pessimist, exactly, any more than Loki was, but experience could be a harsh teacher, and in both their cases often had been.

Here was the time he wished he believed in angels or fairy godmothers or even Blue Fairies who granted wishes, anyone to watch over the safety of a frequently-erring engineer and his precious family. He kept feeling, somehow, that left to his own devices, he was going to slip up in some important way.

When he was nine, his Elementary school’s fourth grade classes had put on a production of the opera _Hansel and Gretel_ by Engelbert Humperdinck (the less-than-stellar composer of the late 1800's, not the somewhat-smarmy 60’s pop vocalist). Tony, cast very much against type, had been part of the chorus of angels, along with every other kid with remotely curly or wavy hair, which the music teacher seemed to regard as an angelic requirement. He could still remember parts of the song the angels sang:

 _When at night I go to sleep_  
_Fourteen angels watch do keep…_  
_Something he couldn't remember._  
_Two are on my left hand_  
_Two are on my right hand…_  
_Something else he couldn’t remember._  
_Two to whom ‘tis given To guide my steps to he-ea-aven…_

Admittedly, that was only six angels, not fourteen, and the missing eight no doubt guarded something super important, despite the fact that he totally couldn’t remember what that might have been.

Tony figured it was moot. If two of them were guiding you to heaven, somebody had already messed up, and messed up badly.

Still, it was a nice idea in the abstract, wasn’t it? To have guardians all around you, watching over you in your most vulnerable moments? Sometimes, despite his big brain and multiple high-powered Iron Man suits, he felt about as effective as a guardian as he’d been as an angel, with his crumpled white choir robe, Converse All-Stars peeping out beneath the hem, and his aluminum foil halo that kept falling over his face.

Loki cracked open an eye. “Those are extremely clumsy lyrics and your sense of personal insufficiency disrupts my sleep. I must rest well, and very well, for tonight at seven I meet with Bruce regarding his most-saddening flat.”

The other eye opened. “Come lie with me, beloved, then I will protect you in my arms, and you will protect me in yours, and together we will make our safety.”

Tony didn’t have to be asked twice. Admittedly, he wasn’t sleepy, and his husband was still kind of bony (as well as slightly bacon-scented), but no safer feeling existed in all the world than to lie in Loki’s arms.

* * *

Precisely at seven p.m., Loki arrived at Bruce’s door bearing a cardboard file-box piled with fabric swatches, catalogs, paint chips and even a few sample pots of paint.

He handed Bruce two Tupperware containers off the top. “Would you place those within your refrigerator, please, my friend?”

Bruce grinned. Those two words, “my friend” were all it took to let him know he was genuinely forgiven. Loki never used them lightly.

“Come in,” he said, taking the box as well as the Tupperware, grinning again as Loki arranged himself elegantly on one end of the couch, then ruined the effect slightly by popping open yet a third container and chowing down on carrot sticks dipped in tannish-green goo.

“It is not goo!” Loki protested. “It is hummus with avocado, and it is good for me, and for Edwin. Thea made it, and the taste is delicious.”

He held out the container to Bruce, who shrugged and dipped a carrot. “Damn, Loki, that is good!”

“As I said. Thea does not make disgusting things for me to eat, though both of us fully admit the color is unfortunate.”

“I can’t argue with that.” Bruce flopped down on the opposite end of the couch and began to rummage through the box. “Loki, you’re so organized with this—helping me fix up my place. I guess I didn’t expect that.”

“And what did you expect? I delight to make things of comfort and beauty, and your flat will also provide valuable practice for the larger project of the penthouse.”

“Dunno. A gallon of Sherwin-Williams paint and an Ikea catalog, maybe a slap in the face with a wet paintbrush?”

“Bruce,” Loki’s voice sounded kind, but also a little chiding. “Are acts of kindness and caring not done for you?”

The light of Bruce’s reading lamp caught fire in Loki’s eyes, making them glow like mystic jewels, magical and a little scary.

“There’s no way to answer that that isn’t either a lie or a pity party, so I think I’ll abstain from answering.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed then, regarding Bruce intently. The fingertips of his left hand tapped gently on one knee. Bruce was just beginning to be uncomfortable, when Loki appeared to come to some conclusion.

“The box is preparation, yes,” he said, “Honest preparation. I truly wish your dwelling to be comfortable and inviting, my friend. And yet, it is also a ruse.”

“A ruse?”

“Tonight I am well-rested, well-nourished, and have taken pains to be so. I have quieted and prepared my mind. Tony would not question my motives if I set out for your flat with a carton of decorating paraphernalia. It makes those motives seem… pure.”

Bruce gave a nervous laugh. “Christ, Loki, you sound like you’re propositioning me or something.”

“I will be penetrating…” Loki’s grin turned slightly wicked. “Your mind, that is." The grin faded. "If, Bruce, you agree this is indeed the night.”

He sat up straighter, his voice becoming brisker, almost businesslike. “I see three options, and may easily achieve for you any of the three, by your choice. The first, that you experience perfect control over when the Green One emerges, but not over his individual acts. They will be entirely of his own direction.”

Bruce shook his head. His palms started to sweat. His heart beat too fast and his mouth went dry. Loki couldn’t mean…? No, it was true. Actually true. Loki meant it all right.

“We are talking about freeing me from The Other Guy, just so I’m clear?” he asked. His voice sounded like he’d been breathing helium.

This was ridiculous. It couldn't... For a minute he thought he would throw up, but instead his answer burst out of him. “No. Hell, no. No way. In that case, even though you say he's totally responsible, I'd still feel at fault for what he does. I made him after all. There’s still too much potential for guilt and wholesale destruction.”

“I thought that would not be your way,” Loki said, quietly, but still every inch the businessman.

“Very well. Your second choice will be that you choose to maintain control over both the emergence and the acts of the Green One, as your so-charming kinswoman Jennifer does, thus removing the fear and uncertainty from your life. You will not lose control, yet you may still use the Other's strength in the cause of good, in aid of the Avengers team.”

Bruce realized that he’d begun to shake in earnest, sweat popping out on his forehead now. He felt sick, unbearably sick.

Loki took his face gently between his two cool hands, looking deeply into Bruce’s eyes. “Your eyes appear as green as mine,” he said, in a calm, gentle voice. “Bruce, be still. Be still. There is nothing to fear here, least of all that you will change in this moment. I have the beast controlled.”

“So easily,” Bruce grated out, knowing his voice sounded bitter as well as helium-fueled.

Loki might easily have been genteelly taking tea with the queen, he seemed so at ease.

The god shrugged. “I know my own struggles, Bruce.”

“I want him gone,” Bruce spat out, in that same strangled voice. “Completely gone. Like he’d never been. I can’t… I won’t…”

“Bruce.” Loki touched two fingers to his lips, shushing him. For a moment, looking at those fingers half-cross-eyed, he thought they looked like they were glowing green.

The next minute, they didn’t.

“He has been your friend for a long while, Bruce,” Loki said, his own voice also slightly strained. A thin trickle of blood dripped briefly from one nostril, then suddenly stopped.

“Though you may not have wanted or respected him as such, he was your friend. He fought battles for you, when you could not fight them for yourself. The loss of him may be more difficult than you expect.”

“Loki, please,” Bruce said. “If you came here tonight to set me free from him, just do it. I beg of you. I can’t stand to have it drawn out like this.”

“Bruce, dear friend,” Loki answered, smiling sweetly, though his eyes looked exhausted, and more than a little sad, “Can you not tell? It has already been done. The Green One, your Hulk, is gone from you, as you asked, as if he had never been.”


	5. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce has trouble dealing with the big change in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter contains a brief but intense flashback of small Bruce with his horrid father, Brian Banner, which may be triggery for some.
> 
> A small slice of Banner family background: Brian, Bruce's scientist father, was exposed to radiation while on the job. Though tests showed he was fine, he believed he'd been contaminated and affected by the exposure at a genetic level. Because of this, he vowed never to have children. When his wife Rebecca became pregnant, Brian was convinced the child would be born a monster. Though his son also tested as perfectly normal, Brian remained certain there was something horribly wrong with the little boy. Poor Bruce!
> 
> Avocado green was an incredibly popular color in the 70's, along with burnt orange and mustard yellow. It was, literally, an ugly time.
> 
> The Seneca people of New York and Pennsylvania region, would rub their minor wounds with petroleum collected from oil seeps. When European settlers observed the habit, they began to bottle and sell the substance as a universal remedy, calling it "Seneca Oil". Through the usual human powers of mispronunciation, this shifted to become "Sen-ake-a oil" and, finally, "snake oil." From that, a "snake oil salesman" came to mean anyone who peddles phony goods.
> 
> Solar plexus=a complicated nerve bundle found in the pit of the stomach. Getting hit there produces that ever-popular, "Can't... breathe..." feeling.
> 
>  _Bedtime for Bonzo_ is a 1951 comedy starring future U.S. president Ronald Reagan. And a chimp. I make no further comment.
> 
> The frontal bone is the "forehead" part of the skull. The parietal and occipital are the upper and lower bones at the back of the skull.
> 
> Gustav Stickley (March 9, 1858 – April 21, 1942) was a designer and manufacturer of beautiful American Craftsman style furniture. The movement was the U.S. extension of the British Arts and Crafts movement popularized by William Morris and others.
> 
> People in the U.S. (my part, at least) tend to call all plastic food storage containers "Tupperware," whether they're made by the Tupperware Company or not.
> 
> In olden days, Mr. Green Jeans was a sidekick on the _Captain Kangaroo_ live-action children's television program.
> 
> The saying "Such was life going west" always makes me think of the old _Oregon Trail_ computer game, in which I never once failed to die of dysentery. Which, I guess, is kind of the point of the saying. Such _was_ life going west.
> 
>  _Næstum allt tröll_ ="nearly all trolls" (Icelandic)

* * *

Bruce’s heart kept beating fast. Not fast enough to trigger a change, maybe, but fast enough that he might turn soon. Would turn soon. Really soon.

He raced into the bathroom, leaning into the mirror to get a better look at his eyes. Were they green? He thought they might be turning green. He tugged off his glasses, letting them clatter into the sink.

“Bruce,” Loki said from the doorway, “You will break your spectacles, treating them thus. I have broken mine several times with such careless behavior. Are you experiencing a panic attack, as Tony has been known to, now and then?”

“I have to get to the tank. Now. My eyes…”

“Are brown. Only brown,” Loki said. “Please do not distress yourself, my friend, or be upset. I have done what you asked of me. Your path was not the path I, myself, would have chosen, but I would never deceive you in this. I would never injure your spirit so, in a way that was mischief of the cruelest kind. Certainly, we may venture forth to the tank if you feel we must, but I assure you…”

“Not you. Me. I go. You stay.”

“Ah,” Loki said softly. “Quite. I see.”

When Bruce rushed out—as far as he could see without his glasses—Loki had retreated to take a seat on his shabby plaid couch, knees pulled up to his chest, chin resting on his bony kneecaps.

He looked like a little kid who had just been scolded, and that made Bruce even angrier.

How _dare_ he? Loki was not the victim here.

It was a mere two floors down from his place to the Hulk Tank, but Bruce had never been so terrified he wouldn’t make it, that he’d end up at large, running amok, wrecking his best friend’s tower, maybe injuring someone, or worse…

That journey of two floors lasted forever, with Bruce striking his head over and over against the metal doors the whole way down, trying to use the pain and repetitive motion to control his rage and hold the change inside him until he could get to safety.

He couldn’t hurt anyone. He couldn’t.

When the elevator doors finally opened, then the slow, airlock-like entrance to the antechamber, Bruce rushed ahead, catching only a brief, blurred glimpse of Steve’s surprised face as he flew past, yelling. “Get him out. Get Buchanan out! Cap, I’ve gotta have the tank. I’m changing!”

Within seconds, Bucky was hurrying past in the opposite direction, and Steve had taken Bruce’s arm and hustled him inside.

“Steve, get the locks. The moment you’re clear,” he panted.

Bruce crouched on the floor in the center of the tank, panting harder now, trying to make out the five clicks, which would mean the sequence of locks had engaged, over the drumbeats filling his ears. Once that happened, he was safe, and everyone was safe from him. Tony had built this thing to hold The Other Guy, and hold him it would. It always did. Always. He could rely on that, as he could rely on few things.

Bruce wanted to cry, as he hadn’t cried since he was a boy. He’d believed, he’d actually believed, as he’d believed so many things back then, giving a god of mischief the same kind of trust he’d given the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny as a preschooler.

Even though there was no such thing as magic in the world, only lies and tricks.

 _Fool me once, shame on you_ , his father’s slurred and furious voice raged in his head, _Fool me twice, shame on me!_ Do you think you’ll fool me twice, boy? Do you think you’ll fool me even once, you misbegotten thing, you fucking freak?

Then…

Bruce slipped into the moment, completely into the moment, one of so many in his young life: Brian’s big, gnarled hands closing on his scrawny arms, and the floor just flying away, then flying back again, straight into his face, up-down, up-down, until time and space, pain and tears, no longer had any meaning, until the worn old avocado-green linoleum cracked under the impact of his small body.

He knew better than to beg for mercy. There was no mercy to be found, ever. Mercy, in his world, existed even less than magic.

But he was still too small to hold in the tears.

“Cry, will you? _Cry_?” Brian jeered, disgust twisting up his features to a gargoyle’s face. “You monster. You mutated thing. You _puny_ boy.”

The heels of his shoes made dull, sad thuds against the damaged floor as he stalked away, like the beats of two dying hearts.

 

Bruce’s own rage—then and now--filled up his head, white-hot at first, then a sick, throbbing red, like the worst migraine in the history of the planet. His stomach convulsed, and he vomited copiously on the white floor of the Hulk Tank.

That floor was a special compound, something like metal, something like ceramic. Indestructible. He couldn’t break it, no matter how he tried, no matter how hard he hit--and neither could The Other Guy.

“Bruce,” that was Loki's voice.

How was Loki even there in the tank with him? Steve knew better than to disengage the locks once Bruce was in.

Steve wouldn’t court death. Steve was sensible, reliable, not like Prince God of Fucking Mischief.

Snake-oil salesman Loki. Con-man Loki. Liar Loki.

“Bruce, please,” Loki said. “Bruce, my much-harmed, unfortunate friend…”

God, what an actor! So smooth, that voice. So plausible, that tone of hurt reproach, overlaid with sympathy, coloring every word he said.

“I believed you, dammit. You made me believe things could change. I couldn’t… I didn’t…”

Bruce surged to his feet, tears streaming down his cheeks as he screamed in Loki’s face, “You made me fucking believe! I thought—actually thought—you could do what you said you could do!”

Loki had just started to step backward, his face chalk-white with shock and betrayal, when Bruce flailed out. He didn’t even mean to, it was like he couldn’t control his limbs, and he caught Loki across the face with a vicious backhander while he was still totally off guard.

Loki flew, absolutely flew, as if he’d suddenly sprouted wings, striking the wall halfway up, then sliding down again.

“Dr. Banner!” Cap’s voice had taken on the tone of command. “Stand down!”

An arm curled around his neck, coldly metallic, and holding him so tight Bruce could hardly breathe, while the other Avengers poured into the tank, their voices a cacophony of outrage and disbelief, making his shame and confusion complete.

It hit him hard, like a blow to the solar plexus: he hadn’t changed.

He wasn’t big.

He wasn’t green.

He wasn’t going to change. Not now. Not ever.

He was just Robert Bruce Banner, horrible friend and total idiot, standing there nauseated and achy and shivering in his own pathetic body.

Loki, who was a good friend (the opposite to himself), and who always tried so very hard to please Bruce, to be liked by him, had done exactly what he promised he would do.

The Hulk wasn’t there. Anywhere. Bruce, for the first time in decades, lived alone inside his own head.

Loki had also issued a warning to him, along with his promise of help, and he’d certainly been at least partially correct: Bruce hadn’t even begun to process this change. He didn’t know how he ever would.

He’d once told the others he was always angry, and that was the truth. What he hadn’t realized was how much of that weight the Hulk carried on his broad green shoulders. Left alone with it, Bruce felt like he would break in two.

Maybe he’d already broken.

“It’s okay,” he said hoarsely, swallowing against the metal pressed to his throat. “I… I’m… I just… I freaked. You can let go now. I won’t hurt anyone.”

“Bucky, how’s it going? Are you okay?” Steve, who rarely appeared stressed, looked anxious beyond belief, the corners of his mouth turned down, his forehead nearly as wrinkled as Bruce’s khakis. “Tony, is your husband all right?”

“Hey, buddy, don’t worry. I’m not turning back into the Winter Soldier, if that’s what you mean.”

It was the first time Bruce had heard Bucky’s normal voice, that he could remember, rather than the voice of the Winter Soldier. Bucky sounded cheerful and confident, and with his hair cut short, in a style close to the one Steve favored, dressed as Steve dressed in chinos and a pressed button down shirt with the sleeves rolled, his skin free of the raccoon-mask of makeup and his eyes clear, he looked more than okay, he looked fresh-faced, handsome, good-humored.

His metal arm released its hold on Bruce’s neck. “Just making sure, pal,” he said. “No offense, I hope.”

Bruce shook his head.

He could barely stand to look at Tony’s face. His best friend had just gotten Loki back. To see him flat-out on the floor now, clearly unconscious, long, skinny arms and legs sprawled everywhere, must be like a knife in his heart.

“Tone…” Bruce rasped, in anguish. “God, Tone, I’m so…”

“Not right now,” Clint told him mildly. In response to a barely-noticeable nod from Natasha, he took a light grip on Bruce’s arm. “C’mon, my friend, bedtime for Bonzo.”

He steered Bruce gently but firmly back to the elevator, sneaking glances at him, every now and then, out of the corners of his eyes.

“Hey, you know what the difference is between The Hulk and you just then?” he asked, as the elevator doors slid shut behind them. “It’s that the Big Green Guy usually has better self-control than that. Christ, Bruce.”

Bruce nodded miserably. “I know. Believe me, I know. I just… I mean I couldn’t…” He leaned against the back wall, eyes shut. “I lost it. Completely lost it. And you’re giving me that look because, if I was going to change you know I would have, but I’m still just plain old ordinary Bruce Banner, not him.”

He wanted to add, _Too obviously the son of Brian Banner,_ but didn’t. He and Clint didn’t have that kind of history, not like he and Tony did.

But it was obvious, completely obvious. He’d smacked a pregnant person, hard, into a metal wall while dressed in his very own skin. If that didn’t qualify as Brian-worthy, he didn’t know what did.

He felt sick with shame.

He just felt sick.

He pressed his fingertips, hard, against his closed eyes. “Sorry. Migraine.”

Clint walked him straight into the bedroom, turning the lights up only to the very lowest setting on the dimmer. As Bruce kicked off his shoes and shucked his jeans, the archer, showing a somewhat dismaying knowledge of his apartment, and of where he kept his things, produced Bruce’s packet of migraine pills and a big glass of water.

“Want anything else? Soothing cup of tea, maybe?” Clint’s voice was hard to read, especially since his default tone seemed to be permanently set at “mildly snarky.”

“I’m a little beyond that, I think,” Bruce answered.

He could feel his teammate’s stare boring first through his skin, then through the bones of his skull—through the left side of his frontal bone, anyway.

“Try to sleep it off,” Clint said, and this time he sounded sympathetic. “Such was life going west. Worse things happen at sea. You know. Loki’s okay. Sore and a little woozy, but despite smacking his head like _whoa_ , Doom and all his Doom-rays couldn't take away that rock-hard SpaceViking cranium. He’s mostly mad at himself for not paying close enough attention when he knew you were so stressed.”

 _Parietal bone_ , Bruce thought, _Or possibly occipital, depending on the angle at which Loki hit the wall._

“Bruce?” Clint said. Clearly he’d already given the name a few repetitions.

“That’s right, I forgot…” Bruce began, then trailed off, following the insensitive almost-statement with an awkward silence.

“Mentally linked to a god, the gift that keeps on giving,” Clint responded, cheerfully enough, then shrugged. “It’s not bad. Loki’s very weird, but he’s a hell of a sweet kid. Strange as it might sound to say, his intentions are good. He fucking cares, maybe more than is humanly possible. You may have noticed how much he wants to be liked, especially by you, since you’re so close with Tony.

"Loki didn’t even mind you hitting him so much—he grew up in non-stop warrior training, after all. He’s used to being smacked around on a regular basis. What actually hurt him was the lack of trust, that he did a damn fine thing for you, a huge favor, and you instantly reverted to ‘Loki is a crook, Loki is a liar.’ That hurt him a lot, Bruce.”

“I’ll try not to do it again.”

“' _Do or do not. There is no try_.'" Clint did a crappy Yoda impression.

“Yeah.”

“Just get some sleep. Don’t sweat this. No one will hold it against you. We all have our demons, only yours are bigger.”

“And greener.”

“Not anymore,” Clint reminded him, turning the dimmer to zero. “Better dreams, Bruce.”

He shut the door behind him gently.

Bruce lay on his back, staring up into utter darkness--courtesy of the blackout curtains that hung at his bedroom windows--and wishing, for once, that he was part of the increasingly interconnected network of minds trading thoughts all over the tower. For almost the first time in his life, he wanted to be with someone, to be held tenderly in someone’s thoughts, to have someone’s warm arms wrap around him as that person, that someone he loved, told him everything was going to be okay, even if it wasn’t.

That the chance that might happen had turned into a reality (instead of a dusty old dream) seemed almost terrifying.

 _Oh, Bruce_ , Loki’s voice said clearly but gently in his mind.

Bruce’s headache disappeared instantly. Chalk up another one that he owed Loki.

 _You shouldn't do that_ , Bruce said. _You're injured._

 _It is nothing_ , Loki answered, in his most princely tone.

_What time is it? I don’t have my glasses on. Can’t see the clock._

Loki always knew the time. To the minute. Tony constantly tried to trip him up, but never did.

 _Nine thirty-seven on the clock. Have you considered the finding of a girlfriend? You are a kind and clever man, handsome in a way women find quite appealing. When I begin to teach again, I shall without doubt discover several women of appropriate age and manner in my graduate classes, and will take great joy in introducing you to one of their number. I have also observed many worthy women amongst the faculty, and would be willing to make closer study, then introduction, on your behalf, if required. Tony threatens that he will create for you an online profile of dating, but I believe—or, at least, hope--he jests. I am, at any rate, more traditional in my discovering of partners. I prefer to find them magically sealed within trees, or within the holding cells of deceptive helicarriers_.

Even Loki’s thoughts are full of commas, Bruce thought, but he couldn’t help but smile a little.

Clint was right, Loki was a sweet kid, and he’d been a jerk not to notice long before this.

 _First things first_ , Bruce said. _How are you? I’m so sorry for the smackdown. Even sorrier I doubted you._

 _You were overwhelmed and overwrought_ , Loki answered, _And so are completely forgiven. Hela informed me she was impressed by your prowess, as she had not known you were so strong._

_Please, now, come upstairs, as you are our friend, and ought not, at such a time, to remain alone. Even Tony has brought himself round to my way of thinking, though he was somewhat enraged at you at first, and muttered divers threatening epithets._

Loki paused, apparently catching his mental breath.

 _I have been sick a time or two, which is an effect of concussion,_ Kurt tells me, _but now feel much better, except for a small headache, and a feeling of weariness. Kurt will not let me sleep at this time, but he has been called suddenly away. You have a lovely, soothing voice, and are not boisterous like Tony or the children—or, worst of all, my brother who, though very dear to my heart, is also extremely noisy. Will you not come up and amuse me, Bruce? You might bring the box, which was only partially a ruse, but is also filled with useful things for the betterment of your flat. I would also show you the most-lovely Stickley chair I have located for you within EBay._

_You’re really generous, Loki. I’ll think about coming. I will._

_You are no longer angry with me, Bruce? I chide myself strongly that I might have made more of a production of the change as it occurred within you, and perhaps should have done. I was lazy, and sought to conserve energy, and was wrong to do so. Kurt has explained to me the importance of ritual and of rites of passage to Midgardians. I was ever impatient with the rituals of Asgard, though they often contained great beauty. Thor told me our mother’s funeral was full of beauty and meaning, and of course our small Wilhelm’s funeral was lovely indeed._

The god’s sudden sorrow washed over Bruce, mingling with his own.

_Loki? You okay?_

_How I do not want them gone from me, my dear ones, and how I do not want Sherlock, my son, to be gone, far away in London! I wish him here, where I never feel lonely for his presence, and... Oh, Bruce, in this moment I feel so sorrowful, when Kurt has been called away, and shields his thoughts from me for a reason I cannot determine, and Tony is consumed, just now, with the needs of the children. It is foolish, I know, and yet…_

_It’s not foolish, Loki,_ Bruce interrupted, _It’s probably another effect of your concussion. Which I gave you, when you were only trying to help me._

He felt a touch, very light and gentle, inside his mind, like a brother’s loving and comforting embrace, and with it the merest breath of thought, _Those who raised us—I do not call them fathers—were consummately evil men, and the blame for that will never be ours._

It hit Bruce that Loki might actually have an understanding of that part of his life that few others could, even Tony, whose dad was certainly no prince among men, despite all his wealth.

 _Let us think on it no more at this time?_ Loki said. _Please? He was starting to sound shaky._

_How about this, then--have you tested your blood sugar lately? You know how demanding that kid of yours is._

_I had not thought of it_ , Loki admitted.

_Okay, then, I’m grabbing my medical kit, but I’ll also bring the box, as requested, take the stairs up and be there in one minute._

_There is no need, truly…_ Loki began.

_Please. Let me do something concrete. Concrete helps. I’ll feel better._

_Very well,_ Loki answered faintly, _You are kind to indulge me._

Bruce gathered his things, adding a couple ice-packs for good measure, along with the Tupperware Loki had left behind in his fridge. One floor up, in the “penthouse south,” as Tony had started to call the Starks’ temporary home, things appeared to be in less than the usual uproar, the children clearly trying to be considerate of their _Pabbi_.

Despite the latish hour, homework littered the dining table. Tony was loading the supper dishes into the dishwasher and dropping every third one in his effort to be quiet.

“Hi, kids,” Bruce said, hugging the good-sized box—his cardboard shield—closer to his chest. “Hi, Tone. I’m told you’ve been muttering threatening epithets.”

Tony gave a brief, sharp laugh. “Dude, you broke my husband, and I just got him back from the shop. Not cool, bro.”

“I know,” Bruce answered. “You’ll get no argument from me there.”

“So…” Tony shut the dishwasher and finally turned to look at him. “For reals? No more Mr. Green Jeans?”

“That does seem to be the case. The score is now Magic-1, Science-0, how’s that for humiliating? We try for three years, try every single thing we can think of, and Loki fixes me in less time than I’d take to eat an Oreo, and that’s without using the taking-apart-and-dipping method. Pretty amazing guy you’ve got there.”

“Eh. I’ll keep him.” Tony gave one of his trademark wise-ass grins, but his eyes looked shadowy, worried.

“Something’s going on in Salem Center, Bruce. X-business, I guess, but Kurt had to rush off, and he seemed less than happy, when he was already kinda worked up. We couldn’t even get Hank McCoy for a consult by phone, so, if you can get Loki to let you, look him over for me, okay? Make sure everything’s in working order? Nervous husband and father here.”

“I really am sorry, Tony. So sorry. I don’t always… I mean, I’m not always known for handling things well, and this was far from one of my best moments.”

Tony sent him away with one of the imperial (and imperious) Stark waves, the regal impact somewhat lessened by the dishcloth in his hand.

Bruce gave the watchful kids a slightly nervous smile, and headed for the bedroom.

Loki, propped up in bed on a bunch of pillows, looked a little wan, but otherwise well. His eyes were closed, and the small StarkPad at his side appeared to be reading him a Dickens novel, one Bruce couldn’t place. The reader seemed to have been greatly improved since Bruce last heard it, since the electronic voice now possessed a pleasant British accent, much like Loki’s own, and actually seemed to be pronouncing most of the words correctly for a change.

“Stop, please, dear reader,” Loki said. The machine shut off in mid-sentence. “I worked with Tony to improve it,” Loki told Bruce proudly. “One may now select from divers regional accents, pitches, and qualities of voice. Do you not find it greatly improved?”

Bruce always had to think a minute before answering one of Loki’s “do you not” questions.

“It’s a lot better. And you helped Tony fix it?”

“I did! We work well together, I think.”

Bruce sat on the edge of the bed, setting his box on the floor.

Loki peered into it. “Bruce, you have saved my life, I believe! Have you brought my snack boxes? I must eat of them immediately.”

Bruce passed one over, and Loki opened it with eager hands. The one appeared to contain spheres of melon, small cubes of that dense brown goat cheese the color of baby poop (the one he’d tried once and only once, just after Christmas, at Loki’s urging, and loathed with a fiery burning hatred). The second box held tortilla pinwheels wrapped up with a different cheese and some kind of vegetables.

“Caprese pinwheels! My favorite!” Loki exclaimed. “I dearly love the flavor of basil, but had never eaten of it until I came here to live upon Midgard. Do you like basil, Bruce? Would you care to partake?”

“I’m not really hungry, Loki. Basil’s okay. I guess.”

“Your spirits are downcast because of your earlier actions,” Loki observed, plowing through his boxes like a Pac-Man hunting pac-dots, but still appearing utterly mannerly as he did so. Bruce didn’t know how he managed. “

"However, my friend, there is no need. We both know well what it is to have a cruel parent. The actions of a moment, taken in confusion and disbelief, do not make you of the same order as your terrible father, and I truly hold no anger against you.”

He sucked in a slow, cautious breath. “Oh, I feel sick.”

“You’ll feel better if you lie flat.” Bruce pulled out most of the pillows, stealing one of the pillowcases to wrap around the first of the ice packs he’d brought with him. He helped Loki to lie back, placing the squashy gel-pack behind the god’s head, where his fingers detected a sizable knot.

“God, it feels like a doorknob! Loki, I’m so…”

“Please do not apologize again,” Loki said. “Put the concern from your mind,”

“In that case, I’m going to start an I.V. to give you some added hydration and nutrition, and also put in something to fight the nausea you’re feeling. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt the baby, though it probably will make you sleepier than ever. It’s okay, though, if you do go to sleep, as long as we wake you up periodically. Go ahead, close your eyes now. I’ll be back in a second.”

Loki did close his eyes. “Please hurry.”

“Do you need to throw up?”

Loki swallowed, hard. “No. That would only make matters worse. Edwin would only demand further feeding, and I should feel miserable. Please do hurry, though, Bruce.”

Bruce touched his shoulder briefly “Back in a flash, then. Hang in there.”

Bruce was glad he and Kurt had reorganized the infirmary during the long hours they’d recently spent there. The “Loki-Safe” meds now had their own locked cupboard and refrigeration unit. The contents were a weird mixture, as much herbal as chemical. Hank McCoy really had done brilliant work, and it was a shame he couldn’t be recognized for it.

Bruce found what he needed quickly and hurried back upstairs, to find Loki somewhat restlessly asleep, his son Jöri curled up by his side, reading a book called _Math Tricks and Logic Puzzles_.

“A kid after my own heart,” Bruce said, swabbing Loki’s arm and starting the I.V. on the other side. “This is just something to make your _Pabbi’s_ tummy feel better, and give him some extra water and vitamins.”

“Good,” the little boy answered, turning a page. “I observed that he might be slightly dehydrated. Poor _Pabbi._ The nausea is pernicious.”

Lesson learned about baby-talking the Starks’ genius kids.

“Why did you hit him?” Jöri asked, after a pause.

Task complete, Bruce sat on the bed.

“Sometimes I’m not a good person.”

The little boy considered. “I don’t believe that’s a sensible answer.”

“It’s the best I’ve got.”

“No.” Jöri closed his book and sat up. “ _Pabbi_ does that too. He goes to the sad place, or the guilty place. But it only makes him feel worse. It doesn’t help anything, or fix anything. Maybe you need to find a fixing place instead?”

“That’s my boy,” Tony said from the doorway. Bruce hadn’t heard him come in. “We engineers. All about the fixing. Wanna give your _Pabbi_ a hug and a kiss, Jör? I hear _Afi_ Erik’s getting ready to tell a story. Something about the time he met a troll?”

The little boy giggled. “Dad, trolls aren’t real.”

“Dunno. Might want to check with your _Pabbi_ on that one. He’ll probably tell you all about some place called Trollheim, complete with a rundown of its language, customs and major imports and exports, and then won’t you feel silly?”

"There is no Tröllheimr,” Loki put in without opening his eyes. “ _Næstum allt tröll_ live beneath bridges, in caves, or in the roots of mountains, as everyone knows.”

Jöri laughed, hugged and kissed Loki, and scampered off, replaced one by one with the other children, who each gave their own hugs and kisses—except for Hela, who took her _Pabbi’s_ hand, kissed his cheek and told him, regally, “Be well, dearest.”

“The thing is, I never know when you’re joking,” Tony said to his husband, when the last of the kids had left them.

“My sincerity is absolute,” Loki answered.

“Nope. Still don’t have a clue.”

“Such is your punishment for wedding the god of lies.” Loki said.

Bruce thought he detected a touch of sadness, or maybe bitterness, in his tone.

“I prefer ‘god of stories,’ babe, as you know.” Tony tweaked his husband’s toes through the blanket. “Kind of a day, huh, for both of you? Bruce, you should sleep up here tonight. Since the boys all went to inhabit the tower of terror, we have the room. You only have to choose your bedding motif. Will it be orcas or puppies?”

“No.” Bruce found himself staring at his own knees, dressed in the same grubby, wrinkled khakis he’d worn for hours. Tony was right, it had been a day. A long, long, long day. “No, I…”

 _They pity you. Pity you!_ said the voice in his head. _Look how the puny boy has turned into nothing but a puny man!_

“The voice only seems real,” Loki said. “Gods witness, I know well how real it may seem, and yet never is. Merely a cruel echo of a past that—though it may continue to haunt--will not return again. Know you--” He reached out, gripping Bruce’s hand with one thin, firm hand. “I have traveled to that country, colder and more desolate even than Jötunnheimr, my ancestral lands, more times than I might number, but I have determined never to journey there again.”

His eyes, open now, met Bruce’s, bloodshot, but deeply green. “Come along with me, Bruce, my dear friend, and let us endeavor, in our futures, only to travel forward, ever into brighter lands.”


	6. A Different Kind of Love Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once upon a time there was a golden apple...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story of Hansel is true.
> 
> Tony's a little off on his history of stirrups. The stirrup as we know it today seems to have been invented in China, spread to Europe via invaders from Central Asia in the 6th and 7th centuries CE, and became widely used in Europe in the 8th centery, 100 years or more before Loki's birth. However he is correct in saying the use (or non-use) of stirrups was still an issue when Loki was in the cave with the serpent. One of the many deciding factors in the Battle of Hastings (1066, as we all remember) may well have been that William's men had stirrups, while Harold's didn't.
> 
>  _Minniháttar Blað Örlög_ =The Minor Blade of Destiny (Icelandic). I really have to wonder what The Major Blade of Destiny ( _Helstu Blað Örlög_ ) would look like?
> 
> "And I will love you still, my dear, when all the seas run dry…” is a line from the song " _My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose_ ", words by Robert Burns. Burns gave the lyrics to Scots singer Pietro Urbani (who either set them to a traditional tune or to traditional-esque music that he composed--the history isn't clear) who published the song in his _Scots Songs_ anthology.

* * *

“I brought you mint tea, babelicious,” Tony said. “Molten hot, just the way you like it.” For some reason, hot mint tea worked on Loki the way aspirin worked on other people, without the potential side effects for either his husband or Edwin.

And let it be mentioned that he was definitely naming the next baby personally. The kid would thank him. So far, Hela and Fen were doing okay, relatively speaking, but no one could spell or pronounce poor Sleipnir's name, not to mention Jöri's, which also never fit on any forms (Jörmundgandr Lokison Stark? Really?) Not to mention Narfi and Vali. Or Wilhelm. Maybe he should get Lok one of those "What to Name Your Baby" books, or direct him to a website, or something.

Of course, he himself had gone to MIT with a Korean dude whose parents wanted him to have an 100% American name so he'd fit in, and for this reason had named their innocent little baby Hansel. Thanks for that one, mom and dad. Hansel was lucky to have survived a childhood of mockery. Not to mention his horrible encounter with the witch who lived in a candy house in the deep, dark forest.

Which just went to show, it wasn't only a SpaceViking thing.

"'Babelicious?'" Loki echoed, the more skeptical of his eyebrows rising toward his hairline. "And I feel great love for my children's beautiful names, which I chose for them with care."

"No doubt," Tony answered. And didn't laugh. Not even a little. Indignant-but-not-really-angry Loki was always adorable.

“I have no desire for mint tea. Why does no one listen to me, Tony? Am I incomprehensible?”

“Well, sometimes.” Tony set the tea on a coaster on the nightstand. “Though that’s no reflection on you. It’s not your fault your English-as-a-fourteenth-language--or whatever the hell it is for you--is better than the rest of our English-as-the-only-language-we-know.”

“You attempt to placate me.”

“I attempt to make you feel better. You’re radiating misery, sweetie pie. Your head is thumping. Your stomach also feels yucky, and even though you were lovely and forgiving with Bruce, he hurt your feelings badly. It was one of those situations, huh? Where you understand the reasons, you know why someone’s acted the way they’ve acted, but the knowledge doesn’t make it hurt less.”

Tony slid his lower half under the covers, keeping his upper half semi-upright against the headboard and Loki’s million pillows. “You’re such a good person, babe. Do you recognize that? I often think you’re the best and strongest person I’ve ever known.”

With a sigh, Loki wriggled upright too, finding his favorite position against Tony’s body so that he could sip his tea.

“I try to tell myself the voice speaking to me was that of Bruce’s terrible hurt, never of Bruce himself, but then my own hurt speaks back, filling up all the recesses of my head, and even with my once-father gone from all the worlds, his voice echoes still within my mind, and this sadness nearly overwhelms me, at times.”

Wow. That was new. Loki putting his feelings into words--let alone in an open, honest and considered way--without having reached his total breaking point, or taking the self-blame express all the way to the sub-basement.

“Sweetheart, do you get what a change it is in you that you can even say that to me? That you’re not huddled in a disused piece of ductwork with your hands over your face, trying not to scream? It’s major, baby. Major.”

Loki twisted to stare at him. “I do not…" he began, then followed up with, "How in all the Realms…?”

“I know because you’ve done it in front of me. Several times. Didn’t you realize?”

“ _Nornir_. Truly?” Loki untwisted. “Please tell me I did not! Oh, Tony, you must have thought me mad!”

“I thought you were someone to whom terrible things had happened, or were happening, and that sometimes they hurt too much for you to deal with in any logical way. Remember, I may not have been to exactly that place, but I’ve spent a lot of time hanging around the suburbs.”

Loki laughed. “The suburbs. You are amusing, dearest husband.”

“I have my moments.”

Loki sighed again, picking up his steaming-hot tea and sipping. Hot as he liked it, Tony never quite understood how he had any taste buds left, why they hadn’t been burned out of his mouth about the time human beings were really figuring out in a concrete way that if you attached stirrups to your saddle you didn’t slide backwards off your horse onto your ass. But then he remembered what was happening to Loki during that period, why taste buds were the least of his worries, and wished he hadn’t had the thought.

“You very much correct,” Loki told him, dragging Tony back to the present. "My head does hurt, and my stomach feels most unfortunate, and I hate the sensation of being famished and nauseated all in the same moment. You were kind to bring the tea, _hjarta minn_ , and wise in your assessment —it will help me to feel better, and I will then be far less cross. And despondent. Left to my own devices, I might well have merely lain here and felt increasingly disagreeable in every way with each passing moment.”

“Yup, I’m pretty amazing. Furthermore, I have a couple other surprises.” He produced one of Loki’s snack boxes from under his pillow like a conjuring trick. “Non-perishable, so you don’t have to worry about spoilage, just nosh at will.”

Tony encircled his husband with one arm. “Comfortable?”

“I approach that state.” Loki blew across the surface of the tea to cool it a little, then sipped again. “Already, I feel the effect.”

“Good. Guess what? I also have a secret weapon.”

One-handed, Tony flipped the lid of the fat little tube he’d also kept concealed beneath his pillow, squeezing the sides with his teeth to squirt a fat dollop into his hand. A soft lavender scent wafted into the room and his husband almost instantly melted into a state of relaxed bliss.

“ _Nornir_ , what is that?” Loki exclaimed, sipping his tea again, then setting the cup on his nightstand. “It smells magnificent!”

“Oh, just a little something the staff nurse recommended. Coconut oil, shea butter, a little bit of lavender essential oil. It’s supposed to prevent stretch marks.”

“Stretch marks?” Even in his boneless state, Loki’s voice actually broke with indignation. “You think I will develop stretch marks? Upon my _skin_?”

“Of course I don’t, babe.” Tony soothed (while giggling inwardly—he found Loki’s vanity kind of adorable, it was so harmless, and yet such a part of him). He totally knew better than to laugh out loud; tender as Loki felt right now, this was not the time to tease his husband. “That’s just one of the ways it helps human women. For proud half- _Jötunn_ warriors, it’s meant to be relaxing and make you feel good. Is that acceptable?”

“Highly.” Loki picked up his tea again, and took a bigger sip. “Ah, that is good. I feel wonderfully improved, and you make it just as I like, Tony. Just as I like…”

Tony rubbed his lotion-covered hand in wide circles over his husband’s rounded belly (not that he’d ever use the words “wide” and “Loki’s belly” out loud in the same sentence, he wasn’t insane). He did, however, know exactly the effect his touch would have.

“Aah…!” Loki breathed, and wriggled his skinny-but-still-shapely ass back farther into the V of Tony’s legs, causing Tony to make an approving noise of his own.

He let his buttery-feeling hand travel lower, high on the inside of Loki’s thigh, tracing his fingertips up and down the crease where thigh met body, then back into that sweet warm/cool space behind his husband’s testicles. They were one of the least-human things about Loki’s body, but also, Tony always thought, at the top of his list for one of the sexiest, being firm and tight-skinned and slightly flushed (and, of course, hairless, like all of Loki was hairless, except for his brows and lashes and head), like ripe, cool, near-white plums.

He gave a soft bite to the side of Loki’s neck—very soft, because Loki never liked to be marked in any way—it made him furious, what might actually have been called unreasonably furious, but only by someone who didn’t know him, or his life story.

Tony followed up by licking the spot he’d bitten, just a flicker of his tongue against that supremely sensitive skin, rewarded by that little sound, deep and low in his husband’s throat, the noise he thought of as “Loki’s purr,” all the more charming to him because Loki had no idea on earth he was making it. A special, small, secret sound for him alone.

Loki’s taut little ass gave a delighted wriggle against Tony’s own sensitive areas.

Tony took both his husband's balls into his free hand, cupping them in his palm as he rubbed their softer-than-velvet skin in circles with the pad of his thumb. Loki’s head fell back then against his shoulder, his face turning to Tony’s, lips parted, his mouth seeking Tony’s mouth, his tongue slipping sweetly between Tony’s lips, stroking at it with small lightning touches.

The connection surged between them, physical and mental, all the pain and distress Loki had felt in his day somehow encapsulated, there but set aside, as Tony’s fingers moved, next, to his half-risen cock, caressing the underside with slow gentle strokes until it stood fully, proudly at attention. His thumb moved now over the head, where Loki was so sensitive he could scarcely bear to be touched, yet couldn't bear not to be.

Oh, how Loki adored any loving, careful touch! The muscles of his belly rippled in rhythmic shivers, his toes fisting into the bedclothes. The sound in his throat came louder now, vibrating through his body, into Tony's.

Tony hadn’t been cut himself, even though circumcision had been more or less the norm at the time of his birth. Loki had no foreskin, but Tony didn’t know if that’s the way he’d come from the baby factory, or if the _Æsir_ had similar strange rituals about snipping off bits of their baby boys.

Loki's penis had no ridges, no wrinkles, no veins, but was, to all appearances, a perfectly smooth white column with just the smallest blush of color. And yet somehow, in his hand, it felt… indescribable, not featureless at all, but possessing a texture that was somehow absolutely delicious to the touch.

Sometimes he could drive himself almost all the way to the brink just by touching his husband, tasting and stroking his wonderfully, magically unique body, Loki’s arousal mirroring itself in the pleasure centers inside his own brain for double the enjoyment.

In the next second, Loki, unbelievably strong as ever, twisted again, and Tony found himself flipped, on his back and flat on the bed with absolutely no idea how he’d gotten there, Loki parting his legs and pushing straight into him without pausing.

Tony gasped, for a split-second of time, before his body caught up with his mind, expecting pain.

There was none, of course, not the least pinch, or squeeze, or stretch (except in the most pleasurable way). Loki apparently had some sort of Jedi mind-trick for escaping the process of preparation Tony had been used to with his other male partners—him usually being the one doing the preparation, since he rarely bottomed.

He’d never bottomed with Loki. And Loki never topped. Never.

However, just now, his busy husband was doing exactly that, sliding in and out of him in beautiful, slick, perfectly-timed strokes, even as he dipped down low to suck one of Tony’s nipples into his mouth, using plenty of suction, his cheeks hollowing slightly beneath those cut-crystal cheekbones, then just the right amount of tooth and tongue, until Tony, ridiculously, thought he might come just from that alone. Okay, that and the fact that Loki’s cock was now sliding over his prostate with immaculate speed and pressure, while he also (speaking of Jedi mind-tricks) seemed to be stimulating it from the inside, as well.

Almost too aroused to think, Tony somehow managed to get his legs locked behind Loki’s back, riding the swooping, gliding rhythm his husband set, one of Loki’s hands now gripping his butt, now kneading the muscle, now stroking down the outside of his thigh, now—of, for fuck’s sake, Loki, have mercy!—moving to his own cock, teasing, caressing, sliding, his husband’s thumb rubbing the head, underneath the mantle of his foreskin one moment, across the slit the next, toying with every sensitive part and ratcheting his pleasure higher and higher and higher until there was no turning back from the inevitable conclusion.

Tony exploded, he swore, into his component atoms.

Loki’s face, perfectly still and peaceful and blissful above him, showed that he’d done the same.

Some seconds later, Clint’s voice said, drily, in his head, _Well, who needs internet porn when you have that? Of course, that I won’t be able to look you in the face for about three weeks is hardly even worth mentioning…_

Loki collapsed onto his chest, nuzzling under Tony’s chin, kissing him. And laughing--a deep, warm, hearty, totally joyous laugh that Tony had never heard from him before. Not once.

 _Most sincere apologies, Clint, dear friend,_ Loki sent, still laughing. _I quite forgot myself in the moment._

 _Sweet dreams, punkin_ , Clint sent back, affection clear in his thoughts. _I’m glad you’re feeling better._

 _Sweet dreams to you also, beloved comrade. I vow most solemnly to be more circumspect on future occasions. It was only that I had not found my release in so long a time_ …

(Years) was the echo that drifted out of the _Æther_ —as Loki might say—which made Tony wonder, How long was he gone in that strange real-and-not-real country of magic where Odin met his end?

Ultimately, maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe it couldn’t even be measured, especially by Loki, for whom time was such a fluid thing. He counted hours on a clock, to meet his Midgardian obligations, but there was no other sense that time governed him.

A last feeling of tenderness came from Clint (who was never what Tony thought of as a tender man), like a warm, brotherly hug, and then a disconnection.

“Point of interest,” Tony said, rubbing his sated husband’s shoulders, as Loki lay against his chest.

“Who…?” he began, then decided it didn’t matter.

“Only Clint and Erik,” Loki assured him, in answer to the unspoken question. “Because they remain so close to my mind. My dearest Kurt, if he had been near—but he is not near…”

A palpable wave of sorrow ran through his husband at the thought. Since the moment they’d met, Loki had never been so far from the young German’s thoughts. Even when he’d been locked up by S.H.I.E.L.D., distant even from the children, it had been Kurt who could reach him, Kurt who sent him daily love and reassurance...

Tony was sorry, suddenly, that he'd brought up the topic.

 _I did not mean to cause you embarrassment,_ hjarta hjarta minn, Loki sent to him _. I utterly forgot myself in the moment, and it shames me.”_

Loki, it hit Tony, was not ashamed because he’d broadcast their lovemaking to two of his closest friends in the reckless, joyful abandon of the moment. He was ashamed because he thought he’d caused Tony shame. Loki's thoughts even then, were only of him.

Tony laughed aloud. “Oh, babe, don’t worry about it! Haven’t you heard? Tony Stark has no shame.”

“Such had I heard rumored.” A smile played now at the corners of Loki’s lips. He pushed upward, moving to straddle Tony’s waist, slender thighs gripping Tony’s hips. After a long moment gazing into Tony’s eyes, he bent to the side, pulling something out of the drawer of his nightstand.

Two somethings, actually. The first was the golden apple. The second a small, ornate, pearl-handled knife.

“It is called _minniháttar blað örlög_.” The low light in their bedroom moved, in slippery water-like waves, over silver and pearl as Loki turned the little knife in his fingers.

“Best belovéd, have you any misgivings?”

He held Tony’s gaze once more, even as (Tony glimpsed in his peripheral vision), he pared one thin slice from the fruit, then a second.

“Any regrets, a question of any sort? Now is the moment you must ask of me all your wonderings, for the next moment comes too late.”

He glided back slightly, almost down to Tony’s knees, allowing him to sit up.

“You’d think I might,” Tony answered, “But I can’t think of any future in which I won’t be equally in love with you, in which I won’t think of you every moment we’re apart. I can't imagine any moment in which you won’t still be my salvation and my personal miracle--and I don't say that lightly, because I never thought I believed in those things.”

“It is kindly and lovingly said,” Loki murmured, “And indeed I foresee no moment, from this moment until the dissolution of time, when you will not be the heart of my heart, my best-loved Anthony, or when I will not wish you to walk by my side.”

Tony’s lips parted. Tenderly, carefully, Loki slid the first slice between them.

The second slice he slipped between his own.

Hand in hand, they bit down upon the fruit, gazes locked, time motionless, even as Tony’s heart fluttered with nervousness, terror, joy.

A line from the song Hela and Jöri sang at their wedding drifted through his head: “ _And I will love you still, my dear, when all the seas run dry…_ ”

He understood, then, in that moment: this was a second, deeper, and more binding ceremony of marriage, of more meaning, even, than their first.

It wasn’t American, Midgardian, or human. It didn’t signify, “I’ll love you for a decade, then we’ll get bored, and stop making an effort, quarrel about nothing, then go our separate ways in as friendly or as acrimonious a manner as we can manage."

On the contrary, it meant, _I will love you, I will commit myself to you, for always. For days, years, decades, millennia._

_However many pages exist in our personal stories, I am Loki’s, and Loki is mine. We will love. We will be together. In whatever our long life brings us, we will be together._

Tony could live with that, he found. He could live with that, and for that, however many years there were.

Loki’s hand cupped his cheek, cool against his own flushed skin. Green fire filled his husband’s eyes, but his expression seemed full of gentleness, tenderness, humor.

 _This man,_ Tony thought. _This beautiful, wonderful man, who I love now and always. My miracle. My god, who fills me with wonder and amazement._

 _Hjarta hjarta minn_ , Loki’s thought brushed Tony’s mind, and for however many times Tony had heard the words on Loki’s lips, however many times they’d touched him with their sincerity, he finally understood fully what Loki meant when he spoke them.

_I am the heart of your heart, Loki, and you are, in every possible way, the heart of mine: my conscience my courage, my happiness, my hope._

The juice of the apple burst into his mouth, tasting of joy and clover-honey, sweetness and memory.

Probably for the first time ever in his outwardly cocky, inwardly self-loathing and self-doubting life, not a question remained in Tony’s mind that he’d done exactly the right thing.

He’d taken big steps to fix the stuff he'd hated in himself—the drinking, the cruel things--not funny in the least--that sometimes came out of his mouth, the "anything for a buck and damn the consequences" attitude and the meaningless, loveless womanizing of the past.

He had a team, friends he loved, work he could do with passion and a clear conscience. Most of all, he had his family, and most, most of all, even above all that, his amazing Loki.

“Oh, how I love you,” he said, leaning forward, head resting on Loki’s chest, the confident beat of Loki’s heart in his ear, Loki’s belly warm and sweetly rounded against his own, alive with their baby son.

Loki’s arms curled around him, Loki’s fingers combed softly through his hair, and suddenly none of the old stuff mattered, not Howard, or Obie’s betrayal, not Ten Rings or the near-loss of his own heart. Not all the loneliness and sorrow, anger and frustration and bitter grief.

It was all in the past. Completely in the past.

As Loki had said to Bruce, it was time to move forward, to chase that brighter future.

The future with Loki.

The future in which he would never again stand all alone


	7. What Can't We Face?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony tries to light a bit of a fire under his best friend. Figuratively, not literally, of course. Loki gets an unpleasant reminder of December's events

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Formica is a composite of paper or cloth mixed with melamine resin. Since it can be wiped cleans and resists heat, it's often used for kitchen countertops.
> 
> Of Eastern European Jewish origins, blintzes are thin pancakes (crepes, basically) filled with potato, vegetables or cheese. Mrs. Rosenblum's are filled with a sweetened cream cheese and ricotta mixture topped with a tart cherry compote.
> 
> If you like a scare-your-pants-off horror movie that also features strong, believable women, you could do far worse than _The Descent_. Of course, you may also come away with new phobias of the dark, water, caves, enclosed spaces, that one friend of yours who always has to have her own way, and vicious, bat-like quasi-humanoids. It's to the last that Tony refers.
> 
> Cousin Jennifer is, of course, the one and only She-Hulk. Bruce gave her a blood transfusion to save her life after an accident, giving her a portion of the Hulk powers, which she can control and, when last I looked, seemed to greatly enjoy. And who wouldn't? She basically turns into a green Serena Williams.
> 
> "Schlump"=to do something lazily, foolishly, or while poorly dressed.
> 
> Ixnay="nix" in Pig Latin, which probably isn't one of Loki's languages.
> 
> Although its roots go back a little earlier, into the late 1940's, rock and roll acquired its name in 1954.
> 
> Though better known as a musician, Tom Waits has also played a homeless man in several movies (and also Dracula's bug-eating henchman, Renfield. His music features his distintive raspy voice, elements of jazz and blues and, often, lyrics about booze, cigarettes, late nights and other staples of the seamier side of life.
> 
> 5 kilos equals slightly more than 11 pounds.
> 
> Loki's pretty much in folklore central here: trials that last a year and a day, animals that grant wishes, and wishes that don't turn out the way the wisher intended all being being common motifs. Another being: "why we don't call back the dead." 1)They'll be in the same shape they were in when they died, and will have no power to heal, so bringing them back is the ultimate cruelty (" _The Monkey's Paw_ "); 2) what you get back may even look okay, but it won't be your loved one, but something evil instead ( _Pet Sematary_ , the Buffy episode, " _Forever_ ").
> 
> Tony is slightly confused, but still correct. Both _The Alfred Hitchcock Hour_ (" _The Monkey's Paw--A Retelling_ ," 1965) and _The Twilight Zone_ (" _The Man in the Bottle_ ," 1960--a genie, rather than a paw, but otherwise basically the same plot) featured stories based on " _The Monkey's Paw_."
> 
> I tasted sturgeon as a child, before it was over-fished and further commercial fishing was banned. The flavor really was remarkably pork-like.
> 
> The fictional Slough of Despond is a deep bog in John Bunyan's unsubtle allegory _The Pilgrim's Progress_ (1678). The hero, Christian, sinks into the mud under the weight of his sins and his sense of guilt for them. The Slough may have been inspired by the real-life Squitch Fen, a marsh near Bunyan's home in Harrowden, Bedfordshire.
> 
> A Van de Graaff generator is basically a fun science toy used to demonstrate electrostatic energy. The charge gathers on a hollow metal globe, and if you touch the globe your hair will stand dramatically on end, like a cartoon character that has just seen a ghost.
> 
> RAF pilots and flight crew in WW II suffered horrific casualties, with only about 27% making it through the war unscathed. A shocking 55% were either killed outright or died of their service related wounds.
> 
> National Socialists=Nazis
> 
> Cetaceans=whales, dolphins and porpoises

* * *

“So,” Tony said. “Showering’s an optional thing now, bro? Changing clothes?” He pushed the large paper cup of coffee carefully across the Formica tabletop toward Bruce, then produced a little white carton, the kind that Chinese takeaway usually came in. “That’s not last night’s pork fried rice. Those are cheese blintzes with sour cherry sauce, from Mrs. Rosenblum, Sr., at the deli. They don’t even sell cheese blintzes at the deli. She made them just for you, with her own hands, from her great-grandmother’s recipe. That’s something you can’t refuse. If you don’t eat them she’ll probably come up here herself and wring her those very same tiny, grandmotherly, blintz-making hands at you in distress, and then you’ll be sorry.”

Tony produced a plastic fork, in a plastic wrapper, from his pocket. “I won’t even make you use a plate.”

Bruce glanced briefly into the carton. “They look tasty.”

“Could that have sounded any more lackluster? Show some enthusiasm, Eeyore.”

“Probably not,” Bruce admitted. “But what do you want me to say? I do eat. Loki comes by. He cooks something if I forget.”

“So, who’s your best friend ever, Bruce? And why did that best friend have to hack your lock, but you willingly let his husband in?" Tony frowned at his ScienceBro. "Plus, I know for a fact Loki can’t make anything but scrambled eggs, toast, and oatmeal. Have you been living on scrambled eggs, toast, and oatmeal for a week?”

“I need to lie down,” Bruce said. The sad thing was, it looked like that was the truth. Maybe it was the malnutrition.

“Okay,” Tony agreed reluctantly. “But on your ugly couch, please, not in your joyless, lightless cave of a bedroom? You leave it that way any longer, those mutated subterranean monster-things from _The Descent_ will take up residence, and you’ll only be able to dream of escape. By the way, you do remember that you have painters coming tomorrow, right? We have plenty of room for you to stay with us, but it just so happens that I received a phone call today from Jennifer. You may remember her? Your gorgeous, fun-loving green cousin? She wants you to come visit. Who knows, maybe a change of venue might do you good?”

“Don’t wanna stay with Jennifer,” Bruce mumbled, schlumping from his sad table to his sadder couch before collapsing on the sagging cushions. “She makes me exercise. Five A.M., Tone.”

“Exercise is good for depression. So is getting up early.”

“In the kindest possible way, my friend, fuck you.”

“Nice, bro. Very kind.” Just now, the truth was Bruce made Tony want to cry big, salty tears of frustration. Why was it he could so easily build flying suits in a hundred different variations, but he couldn’t help his best friend get through a life-change? What the hell good was he?

 _All the good in the world_ , a quiet voice said in his head. _Despite all my own drama of the previous evening, neither of us must succumb to this, belovéd. Remember that beings of thought are not so readily repaired as mechanical devices. To wallow in our own shortcomings does not help our friend._

_Ixnay on the wallowing and succumbing. Got it, babe._

_At times your thoughts are strange to me,_ his husband commented, with an air of affectionate bemusement, and signed off.

“I say something funny?” Bruce asked.

“Not hardly. Husband-in-my-head did. Meanwhile, bro, you look like a corpse,” Tony told him, upgrading his frown to a scowl. “Like the corpse of a man who died alone and unloved on the mean streets of New York. However, we both know that’s not the case.”

“I know,” Bruce said, glasses off and eyes closed. “I know it’s not the case.”

“Yeah,” Tony responded. “You’d better, buddy.”

“Your manner of cheering people up is strange.” Bruce sighed. “It does not resemble our Earth customs.”

“I know.” Tony plunked his ass down on Bruce’s coffeetable, which appeared to have been manufactured around the same time rock 'n' roll was born, and lived a long and difficult life since then, probably drinking, singin’ the blues and smoking cigarettes until the wee hours. It had that kind of look. It was like the Tom Waits of coffeetables.

“What?” Bruce said.

“What?” Tony echoed, and raised both eyebrows at him. It was a look which generally caused his husband to say, “If you persist in that expression, best-belovéd, I shall be forced to fling harmless yet stingingly painful objects in your direction.”

“God, I hate you sometimes,” Bruce said, sounding as if he meant it.

“You don’t mean that.”

“Yes. Yes, I do. And Loki teleports,” Bruce told him. “That’s how he gets in. It’s not like I can stop him. He just… shows up.”

“Mmn,” Tony said. He actually knew all about Loki’s visits, including the fact that his husband brought Bruce entire meals of healthy comfort food, lovingly prepared by the incomparable Mrs. Ransome. Bruce, Loki said, would take a bite or two after extreme amounts of coaxing, then abandon the rest to what would have been sad decay, if Bruce’s brooding silence hadn’t frazzled Loki’s nerves and made him stress-eat what was left—although that was probably a good thing for both Loki and Edwin, since Loki ate constantly but still couldn’t seem to keep up with the baby’s demands on his body.

He’d lost close to five kilos in the past week alone.

So far, in his quest to cheer Bruce up and get him to rejoin the land of the living, Loki had tried screening whimsical movies, reading upbeat classic novels aloud, and playing soothing music on his acoustic guitar, all without the slightest effect. He tidied up Bruce’s hell-hole and washed his dishes and clothes. He’d even tried just bringing his laptop and working on _Sons of Asgard 3_ in silent, affectionate, key-tapping companionship while Bruce moped on the couch in his ratty bathrobe, now and then plying Tony’s BFF with cups of soothing tea.

The only good result being that Loki had now written all the way up to chapter fourteen of his novel, months before schedule, and his agent, Anita Garcia, was beyond pleased with him.

“Why must all my well-intended deeds go so awry?” Loki had mourned the night before, lying flat on his back on their bed after the kids were tucked in, and wearing nothing but a black tank top and boxer-briefs. He looked a little like a beached and pregnant (though still completely adorable) orca, or possibly some kind of porpoise.

Tony toyed with the idea of calling his husband, “My glorious porpoise” to his face, but decided he liked his head where it was, firmly attached to his neck. Pregnant Loki wasn’t necessarily the same being as Take-the-Joke-in-the-Spirit-Intended Loki.

“Bruce mourns the loss of the Green One as if he has lost his most-dear friend, and I am to blame for that,” Loki went on. “Steven came to badly neglect his duties, and was cast aside as leader of your war-band, forcing Lady Natasha to take his place. I become despondent.” Loki tossed a roasted chickpea in the air and caught it with his mouth, though in a melancholy sort of way. He never missed. Not once. Tony had been watching.

 _Our war-band_? he thought.

“Babe, are you back-sliding, maybe, just a little, into blaming yourself for stuff you can’t control?”

“Not at all.” Another chickpea flew, was caught and crunched. “I grow frustrated. Perhaps even perturbed. I grant to them their hearts’ desires and they prove themselves ungrateful wretches.

"Tomorrow you shall go to Bruce, not I," Loki continued, "And inform him that if he persists in this, the Green One will be returned to him as he now seems to wish, and though he plead with me on bended knee, shall not be removed again until a year and a day have passed us by, and even then not without he grants to me a boon of my own choosing.”

“Listen to you with the tough love! What sort of boon are we talking?”

“Oh, soup from the deli every day for a month, something of that order.” Loki laughed. “Did you think it would be something dire? His firstborn, perhaps, or the roe of the fish that grants wishes?”

“There’s a fish that grants wishes? Where?”

“Oh, yes.” Loki caught another pea. “In the Black Sea. She is very old, terribly wise, and in superficial ways resembles a sturgeon. Have you ever eaten of a sturgeon? Its flesh is oddly reminiscent of the flesh of swine.”

“Also known, to the rest of us, as ‘pork.’ And sturgeon have been endangered for the better part of my life, and aren’t commercially fished anymore, so no, I have not. What kind of wishes does this lady…?”

“Who is a fish, and yet not.”

“Okay, what kind of wishes does this remarkable sturgeon-like quasi-fish grant?”

“Very foolish ones,” Loki answered, sounding so sad Tony felt totally sorry he’d pursued the subject.

After an extended silence, during which not a single chickpea was launched, Loki asked him, “Belovéd, do you know the story of ‘ _The Monkey’s Paw_?’”

“Not so much, reading-wise, but I think I saw it on _Twilight Zone_ or _Hitchcock_ when I was a kid. Scared the bejeezus out of me. Has Thor read _Pet Sematary_ yet? It’s kinda the same thing, right? Wishing for the beloved dead to return? And I can’t believe the phrase ‘beloved dead’ just escaped my lips. You’re rubbing off on me, I think, baby.”

If he was waiting for Loki to pick up on that “rubbing” with one of his oddly Shakespearean double entendre, he was doomed to wait in vain.

Instead, his husband said sadly, “Indeed, the fish warned me. Her intent is never cruel. She said I would rue the day, but I was young and brash and wounded. I would not listen to her wise words. I asked, indeed, what should not be asked, and would that I had died myself before my eyes beheld her so. My poor, sweet girl. She who I slew as surely as if I had thrown a knife into her heart. Had I not a single thought in my empty childish head?”

“Sigyn?” Tony guessed. “Oh, my sweet baby. First off, who put you in that cave? Second, did anyone force her to go with you?” Tony moved to the bed, sitting cross-legged beside his husband and taking one of Loki’s hands in his own

“I thought her an old woman,” Loki mourned. “I thought she had died, exiled, on Midgard. Her terrible sacrifice on my behalf seemed to me merely a dream. Never did I guess that she had succumbed to the serpent's venom, as I could not.”

“You mean you weren’t one hundred per cent with it at every moment? It’s not like your face was being eaten off with snake-acid or anything.”

“Your sarcasm is misplaced…” Loki sighed. “And yet oddly appreciated, dearest one. You are correct, I never forged those events, or would ever in my darkest thoughts have wished for them. You pull me backward from this Slough of Despond. I am not like the horse.”

 _The horse?_ Tony thought, then remembered how Loki cried every time the kids watched _The Neverending Story_ , which was one of their favorites. The horse that couldn’t be freed from the Swamp of Despair, that’s what his husband meant.

Maybe because of Sleip, a horse was always Loki’s symbolic animal other self. His Spirit Guide, or something, if Tony wanted to go all West Coast.

And Loki wasn’t really put out with Bruce at all…

“You’re scared of Bruce going under. That’s why you try so hard. Baby…” Tony wiped a stray tear from his husband’s cheek. “You want to save him from that. You want to save him from himself. Because you’ve been there.”

Tony stretched out beside him as Loki began to sob in earnest. He didn’t cover his face with his hands for once, just pressed it hard into Tony’s shoulder. Loki was crying out a lot of stuff, he guessed, not just Bruce, or his own past, or the things he’d done or hadn’t done. He was letting loose on recent events, both happy and sad—the loss of Baby Wilhelm, Sleip’s return, Odin’s death, his brother’s meltdown, all the awful crap that happened that winter, being worried about/angry at Logan, missing Kurt, all the trials of this difficult pregnancy, and also that he had dearly wanted to start back to work at NYU, but Hank had put his foot down and absolutely forbade him…

So much for poor Loki to deal with, yet Tony had to see a little ray of sunlight in all of it—his husband wasn’t off somewhere, scared and lonely and miserable, trying to cope all on his own.

No, here Loki was, right here in his arms, where they could share, comfort, be united…

He was so glad he’d eaten the apple. So fucking glad.

Not to mention, he felt like a billion bucks, like all the creakiness of middle middle age had been wiped away, along with the effects of decades of alcohol abuse. He felt—for lack of a better word—prepared. To be a husband, to be father of a young (and growing!) family, to hold up his responsibilities to the team.

Actually, he not only felt ready, he felt excited, like he was a kid again, fresh out of grad school, with his hands full of circuits and gears and the whole world ahead of him.

He felt like Tom Cruise dancing around the house in his tighty-whities in _Risky Business_. He felt like his possibilities were endless.

“Oh, my sweet baby,” he murmured in Loki’s ear, “My sweet god, my prince, my king, heart of my heart, I’m so lucky to have you.”

“And I, you,” Loki sobbed out. At least he seemed to be slowing down a little. Tony rubbed his shoulders and whispered silly things into his ear, until his husband at last lay still, his face now oddly peaceful.

“Feel better?” Tony asked.

“Strangely, yes.” Loki let out a long, slow breath. “Tired now. Hungry, of course.”

“Of course. You stay there. What can I get you?”

Loki considered. “Edwin says he would very much enjoy a large bowl of the ice cream with the peaches. With the salted caramel sauce, if you please.”

It was a weird (and recently discovered) phenomenon of Loki’s pregnancy that some of his food sensitivities seemed to just suspend themselves—the ice cream being a case in point. Goat’s milk ice cream lacking a certain… something, Loki was taking full advantage of the respite.

“Edwin has a sweet tooth,” Tony said.

“If that is true, he gets it from me,” Loki responded, smiling up at him. Even with his eyes bleary from crying so hard, and his nose pink, he was gorgeous. And so, so fucking sweet.

Tony kissed him, long and slowly, tasting him thoroughly, Loki’s hand gliding over Tony’s hip, down his thigh.

“Hungry,” he murmured, when they parted at last. “But after…?”

“As you wish,” Tony said. By which he really meant, _I’ll love you always, my Loki._

After, he lay in Loki’s arms, while his husband, sated with ice cream and sex, played with his hair. It was always messy, despite expensive haircuts. Loki seemed to delight in making it even messier. Sometimes, when Tony got up in the morning, he found he resembled a hedgehog that had received a severe electric shock. Or played with a Van de Graaff generator. Or something. At those moments he was glad none of his teammates (meaning Clint) could see him.

That night’s message from the archer had been, _Again? Really?_ Then a sensation of kindness and friendship, followed by, _Night-night, sugar beets. Sweet dreams._

Loki must have said something Tony wasn’t party to, because he sensed Clint laughing before the connection gently closed, like the careful shutting of a door.

And all was well.

“I like to check in upon everyone before I sleep,” Loki said. He sounded a little drowsy, but only a little, which more or less matched Tony’s state.

It felt good to lie there, holding and being held, talking idly until one or the other of them drifted off.

 _Observe,_ he thought, _The once wild, now thoroughly domesticated Stark._

“And happy to be so?” Loki asked.

“Very happy to be so. It kinda beats being an asshole the rest of my life.”

Smiling, he kissed his husband’s sharp jawline. “Tell me something that makes you happy, Lok.”

“Ought it to be related to us, or not related to us?”

“Um… Not, this time. I guess.”

“Very well.” Loki ran a fingertip along the curve of Tony’s ear. “There is this: I grow to like James very much.”

 _James?_ Tony thought.

“Bucky is a silly name, but that was often the case in those earlier days. Pet names were frequently silly. The men called me ‘Friggy.’ Spellt with a ‘y’ or with and ‘ie,’ I am unable to relate. As in, ‘What mad-arsed nonsense d’you think Friggy will get himself up to next, mate?’” Loki’s imitation of a lower-class London accent was, so far as Tony could tell, flawless.

“They talked that way because they liked you,” Tony told him. “They thought you were da bomb.”

“Did they?” A smile flickered across Loki’s mouth. “I fear your idiom is out of date, belovéd, yet it would gladden my heart to think that the truth, even now. At the time, I believed they thought I was mental. They were fine men, though. ‘Smashing chaps,’ we once said. So many…” For a minute or so, he had the look of having traveled, in his mind, a million miles away.

“Lok?” Tony said softly, smoothing the wild black curls away from his husband’s face.

Loki’s eyes focused again. This time his smile stuck around for more than an instant.

“’Long ago, and in another country,’” he said, as if he was quoting something. “At any rate, James seems greatly improved, now that he has thrown off much of his forced indoctrination at the hands of cruel Hydra, and also the artificial persona with which they implanted him.

“Held back by me,” Loki continued with a certain gleeful smugness, “Said persona withers like a flower unwatered, and unreceiving of the light of day. Foolish modern-day National Socialists, have they not learnt their lessons? I am the god of mischief. They could not defeat me in 1944, and now that I am grown wiser, their power shines with even greater feebleness beside mine. Such magic as they command remains paltry, tawdry and threadbare, as it always is within those who limit imagination and keep locked and shuttered minds. The thought that I might have allowed them to hold my most-beautiful and useful scepter for so much as a heartbeat remains laughable. And I do not in any way resemble a Cetacean, beached or otherwise.”

Tony laughed, though at the same time mulling over his husband’s words.

“Trust you not to let that one slide. So the scepter we took from von Stucker…?”

“As you may have guessed from the utter failure of your potentially murderous automaton, a trifle. A child’s toy. A flimsy mock-up which the foolish man gloatingly took for genuine.”

“And the real one is?”

“In my pocket universe, naturally, where I keep the better part of my important things for safety. I would never leave them lying about where they might be found, either by the ignorant, like von Stucker, or our own dear children. Hela, at the very least, is far too inquisitive. Would you rub my tummy? It feels odd.”

“Odd? The ice cream’s not agreeing with?”

“The inside feels full and lovely,” Loki answered, after a moment’s consideration. “I may no longer see merely by looking down, and the mirror shows only shadow images to my eyes, yet my skin stings as if it has been cut in thin lines. It also itches. I am most annoyed.”

The way it was cut, Tony thought, with a shudder, remembering the awful month of December, Loki coming home to him with a complicated unknown rune-map carved into his belly by a university colleague he’d also thought of as a close friend.

To this day Tony couldn’t remember the repellent Prof. Nels Lars Nelson without a cold rage filling his own belly. He actually hoped to the Norns he never met the guy face-to-face again.

Justice schmustice, he’d rip Nelson’s fucking lungs out through his nostrils.

Funny how scars could fade to thin white ghosts of themselves—in Loki’s case, barely visible now on his pale, pale skin--but memory lingered, hard and sharp as the knife used to cut them.

The knife had been flint, a long, narrow blade. It must have been brittle, too. They’d found fragments imbedded in the outer wounds, and up in…

Tony wouldn't go there. He couldn't.

“Hank gave me some stuff.” Careful not to spill out any of the bad thoughts in his brain, Tony bent down to kiss Loki’s forehead. “Hang in there sweetheart. It’s in the bathroom, but I’ll be right back.“

 _Ha! Who was right about the stretch marks?_ he thought.

Loki would be absolutely livid, but the baby was growing so big, so fast, it really wasn’t any wonder. But, oh, the injured vanity!

“Don’t itch!” he called back over his shoulder from the doorway.

“Tony,” Loki declaimed back at him, sounding definitely ill at ease. “Belovéd, suddenly it itches and burns me badly. Please do what you are able to make it stop? And quickly.”

“Two seconds!” Tony answered. “It’s right here!”

But...

Oh, fuck...!

Tony felt suddenly, horribly dizzy, ears ringing, the bathroom swooping around him, then almost like he was going to puke--that uncomfortably doubtful, "maybe, maybe not" sensation.

He caught himself from tumbling forward with one hand on the mirror, the sick feeling slowly ebbing.

“Tony!”

“Right here, sweet potato.” Tony’s hand closed on the tube, right where he’d left it in the little basket where Loki kept his lotions and shit. His skin felt slick with cold sweat. He pulled a handful of tissues from the box, mopping down his wet face.

“Tony!” That was Loki at full, ringing volume.

“Jesus, Lok, keep your panties on, I was just…”

Loki hadn’t kept his panties on, or his boxer-briefs as the case might be. He’d also removed his shirt, and sat on the edge of the bed, facing the full-length mirror. His eyes were wide, shocked-looking. The green tinge to his skin informed Tony his burst of dizziness hadn't actually been his after all, but his husband's.

It took Tony a few seconds to see what Loki obviously was seeing. Maybe his brain just didn’t want to receive the message his eyes sent.

The weight and shape of their baby inside him had stretched Loki’s tummy to something like a smooth, full moon. Normally, Tony found it adorable. He loved to stroke its wonderful roundness, or even just rest his palm on one part of the curve or another, feeling the little flutters of their son’s movements, such amazing proof of how strong he was, and how alive.

He didn’t find it adorable now. Not because of Edwin inside—of course not for that reason—but because the entire surface was covered now with weeping red markings, like an extremely complicated snowflake, not at all the same rune pattern as before, and at least three times the size.

“Oh,” Tony breathed. “Oh, baby…”

“And I yet know not what it means,” Loki told him, misery in every line of his face.

 

“Where did you go just then?” Bruce asked, sounding at least mildly curious. “In your head, I mean. Your ass is still clearly planted on my coffee table.”

“Nowhere. Loki didn’t have the best night.”

His husband had calmed a lot after a big mug of mint tea, a dressing to cover the wounds and a gentle cuddle. He’d seemed at least resigned when he’d gotten up that morning, but also tired and not up for much.

He’d insisted that Tony still go down to visit their friend, bearing the blintzes Mrs. Poppin’ Fresh had just brought up, even scolding mildly, “Do not call her that, for Mrs. Rosenblum is lovely and kind, and you are impertinent, my husband.”

“Love you.” Tony bent over the back of the big chair where Loki was enthroned to kiss the top of his head. “I won’t be long.”

Even with his husband in the loving hands of the kids and highly-capable Mrs. Ransome, he didn’t like to leave him.

And yes, he was freaked.

“I’m sorry.” Bruce actually did sound sorry, for a change, instead of completely stuck up his own butt. “He’s okay, though?”

Tony shrugged. “I guess. A little down this morning. Look, bro, I’m gonna shove off. You don’t want me here.”

“It’s not that. I just…”

“I know.” Tony’s smile felt like it was on crooked. “Been to that place, remember? Loki has too.”

“I’m aware.” Bruce hauled himself upright. “Look, I will come to you guys during the painting. I’ll even wear real pants, unlike Dr. Selvig. Who knows, maybe a steady diet of family-friendly movies and the gentle tap-tap of your husband’s typing will do me good.”

“Loki's offering an alternative. Or maybe I mean an ultimatum. With Lok, it’s not always clear.”

Bruce made a low croaking sound that might have been a laugh.

“I’ll warn you though: Loki invoked the Grimm Brothers Year-and-a-Day Clause, which I gather is magically binding and he can’t be sweet-talked out of. He says he’ll put The Other Guy back, if that’s what you really want. If it’ll make you feel better, that is. The meaning of the clause being that you can’t change your mind back again for that amount of time. Oh, and he’d want a boon.”

Both Bruce’s eyebrows shot up nearly to his hairline.

“Couldn’t actually tell you," Tony answered the unspoken question, "Beyond that it won’t be your ‘firstborn, or the roe of the fish that grants wishes.’ Who is a fish, only not, kinda like a sturgeon, only not, lives in the Black Sea and grants those kind of _Twilight Zone_ -type wishes.”

“The ones you regret.”

“Yup, got it in one,” Tony told him.

“Your husband is very weird. But I kind of love him a lot. It was a good thing that he came here, these past days, y’know.”

“I know.” Tony squeezed Bruce's shoulder, then rose. “We’re glad to have you as our friend. Remember that, okay? You’d leave a bigger-sized hole in the world than you think.”

“Nothing like that,” Bruce told him. “Maybe the first couple days… But now, no, nothing like that. I’ll be up later. I want to shower, shave, pack my toothbrush… the usual.”

“Good,” Tony answered, glad now that he’d come, feeling better about things in general, even though his husband did still have Satan’s Snowflake carved on his belly. “See you soon, bro.”

Just before he headed off, Bruce called out to him, “Tell Loki ‘no’ for me, okay? Tell him this is just a period of adjustment, that I really am thankful, and… give him a hug for me?”

“Nah, you can do that yourself.” Tony waved a hand lazily. “Laters, Bruce!”

He shut Bruce's door carefully, sucking in a couple deep breaths.

 _Mission accomplished_ , he sent to Loki, only to find his husband napping. And what did his sexy sorcerer dream about?

Ducks, apparently. Cute, fluffy, yellow baby ducks.

Which, he surmised, had to mean, after last night's big freak-out, Loki had now calmed down and wasn't exactly overwhelmed with concern.

So maybe (except in a protective-husbandly way), he shouldn't be either?

Tony trotted back up the stairs, grinning, humming under his breath a line from a song in Buffy’s musical: “ _What can't we face/If we're together…?_ "

He probably should just accept that his life was a little weird, and not worry as much as he did.


	8. Love is a Battlefield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we finally discover what (and who) is behind the attacks on Avengers Tower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The real Nels Lars Nelson had a farm (e-i-e-i-o?) in rural British Columbia, and was my great-uncle. Sorry, Uncle Nels Lars, you were a perfectly nice man, and did nothing to deserve being turned into an evil sorcerer. His wicked namesake, for those who have asked, first appears in _Wedding Bell Blues_ as the kindly older professor who has the office next door to Loki's at NYU. He next appears briefly in _Bruce and Tony and Blessed Death_ , in which we discover Tony does not like the guy. His final appearance before this one is in _Xenophobia_ , where we find out he's a very bad man indeed.
> 
> shop-vac=a powerful vacuum cleaner (Hoover) capable of sucking up both wet and dry substances.
> 
> purse-puppy=a ridiculously small dog, of the kind the spoiled socialites of the world carry in their purses as if they're accessories instead of living creatures.
> 
> It doesn't really make a difference, plot-wise, but the Death Tony sees is intended to be The Death of Heroes. I'm guessing The Powers That Be couldn't get anyone to take on the job of being The Death of Slimy Monsters.
> 
> "The fat lady had sung"--from the saying, "It's not over 'til the fat lady sings." That is, when the opera is over.
> 
> Disney trivia! The giant Nordic shopkeeper in _Frozen_ is, in fact Disney's first openly gay character. In one scene his husband and their children can be seen frolicking in a hot tub.
> 
> In earlier times, "Be all that you can be" was the motto of the U.S. Army.
> 
> Lampreys are a jawless fish (order Petromyzontiformes, superclass Cyclostomata) and one of the oldest species still living today. Adults have a nightmare-inducing funnel-shaped sucking mouth fringed with jagged teeth.
> 
> As Indiana Jones would tell us, Hitler really was obsessed with the occult.
> 
> Wilhelm Klink was the name of the bumbling Kommandant of the WWII Prisoner of War camp in the vintage comedy _Hogan's Heroes_. Most tasteless idea idea for a comedy ever, anyone?
> 
> Tyrion Lannister (aka "The Imp") is a Game of Thrones character who received a disfiguring diagonal ax wound across his face. Sadly, unlike Thor, he did not possess godlike healing abilities.

* * *

Tony jerked out of his exhausted sleep to an empty but not-yet-cold bed and the sound of his husband yelling at the top of his voice in the next room. “Strange! Stephen Strange! Attend us now as you vowed! Our hour of need is arrived!”

“The fuck?” he asked himself rhetorically and headed down the hall at a fast stumble. On his way, he stubbed his little toe hard on the open door of the boys’ room, which the kids nearly always kept closed, he was sure, the better to manage their mischief.

 _Ow! Shit fuck damn, that hurt!_ He hopped a few steps, and made faces—because, ouch!—but gave himself a small round of applause for keeping the cursing internal, at least.

 _Okay, really, husband dearest, what the hell?_ he broadcast, but nothing came back to him but hot, red static. Loki, it seemed, had entered The Zone. The Zone of what, Tony couldn't have said, but Lok had, without a doubt, gone somewhere so far beyond intense it was probably more than Tony himself, with his five measly senses, could possibly comprehend.

He’d never been able to figure out how many senses Loki actually _did_ possess. Seven or eight of them, at the very least, Tony would have said, though his husband never exactly seemed willing to discuss that particular topic. Maybe, to Loki, such a discussion would have felt like bragging, or like setting himself even further apart from everyone else they knew, but Tony found the subject fascinating. He honestly would have liked to have known—what those senses were, what they did, every unknown thing about the amazing man he loved.

Right now he also would have given his entire fortune to know what had Loki so scared--if he _was_ scared, if that’s what was driving this meltdown. Or call to arms. At the moment, Tony couldn’t exact say which of the two it might be.

All four kids, so like their _Pabbi_ , so attuned to things that didn’t even blip Tony’s radar, had beaten him to the living room. But, for that matter, so had Bruce. And Erik Selvig. All six of them stood wide-eyed, staring at the ceiling overhead, and the five who weren’t Hela (who rocked an expression more along the lines of “royally pissed”) looked uneasy.

Meanwhile, Loki…

His husband loomed over the others at the center of the living room, fully armored (with Loki heavily pregnant, the effect struck Tony as a lot less intimidating than in his husband's days of unintentional world domination), dramatically helmed, and…

“Natasha calls the others,” Loki snapped out tersely. “Husband, don now a suit of great power. We meet on the roof.” His gloved palm shot out toward Tony, commanding as fuck. “Do not gainsay me. We battle this night for our lives, and for the lives of those we hold dearest.”

Yikes.

Tony desperately wanted to ask questions, seek clarification, but before he could get out a word, the air behind Loki ripped open, the edges of the tear all smoky and raggedy, not at all like the surgically-clean cuts his husband usually made for teleportation. That raggedness, that sense of everything gone awry, frightened Tony worse than anything, and he knew that whatever awaited them on the roof had to be bad. Really, really bad. To the point that watching his husband vanish through that scary-looking portal became one of the worst things he’d ever witnessed.

Tony’s stomach, now a tight, hard ball, couldn’t seem to decide if it wanted to lodge up in his throat or drop down to the vicinity of his knees.

“There’s a shelter in the sub-basement,” he told Erik and Bruce, keeping his voice low and controlled only with the greatest effort. No sense making the kids as terrified as he was. “Fully supplied. Pick up Jane on the way, take the young’uns and go. They’re my life guys, all right? They’re our lives. Please, I beg you, keep them safe for us?”

The grin he gave the children felt cheerless, and too tight. “Mind _Afi_ Erik and Uncle Bruce, my honeys. Be good. No arguments, and Hela, that means you. You’re helping to guard your brothers.”

His Childlike Empress nodded, not saying a word, and Tony knew then what she knew: whatever lurked up there would be way too big for her even to consider tackling. Not like figuring that out was terrifying, or anything.

And Loki was already up there. Alone? Gods, he hoped that wasn’t the case.

Tony turned and ran, already activating his bracelets, knowing he’d have to ride the elevator, knowing also it couldn’t possibly be fast enough to suit his needs.

Idiot! Why had he been so lax? Why hadn’t he kept a suit there in their temporary home for safety, the way he always had at the penthouse? Because he didn’t have a fancy display to keep it in? So what if this home was temporary? Did he think the creeps of this world were going to hang around waiting for him to finish his decorating? If he’d kept a suit handy, he could have put it on in a flash, launched off the balcony, zoomed straight to the top of the tower and been instantly by his husband’s side.

Instead, here he was, stumbling onto the fucking elevator, two heartbeats away from total blind panic.

He found Natasha, Clint, and Steve already inside--and also Bucky. What in hell was Bucky doing there? Cap flung out a hand to steady Tony in mid-stumble.

“Loki said bring all the fighters we could get,” Steve explained. “He said Bucky too. I believed him.”

Fuck, just another thing to worry about, even though Barnes seemed perfectly calm, perfectly controlled. That metal arm skeeved Tony out for some reason, possibly because it wasn’t sleek and modern, like something he’d make, or even pleasantly steampunky, with the mellow glows of copper and brass. It looked like it belonged on one of those medieval suits of armor that constantly came to life in Scooby Doo’s adventures, scaring Shaggy and Scoob half to death.

Goddamn Hydra.

“Yeah,” Tony answered hoarsely. “Yeah. Okay. Good.”

At least the others on board were dressed and ready for action, unlike him. A mantra rang through his head. _My suit will be there, I can fight. My suit will be there, I can fight. Nothing bad will happen._

 _Loki!_ he cried out, but again got only the crackling redness.

“Tell me Thor’s already up there? Please?” he pleaded.

Natasha touched the link in her ear and shook her head. “If he is, he’s not answering. What about Loki? Are you hearing anything from him?”

Tony shook his own head in return.

“Red static,” Clint put in. “Nothing else but.”

Just then Loki’s voice erupted inside Tony’s head, impatient and maybe even worried, as if he’d been calling a long time, but getting nothing. _I have contained them. None will escape into the city. Thor is wounded, but he heals. Some one of you must take him from the fray_.

Clint met his eyes.

“Loki just rang in,” Tony informed the team. “He’s put up some kind of shield to contain the threat--whatever the hell it is--only to the tower. No other word on what we're fighting, only that it was tough enough to take down Thor with a quickness. Someone needs to haul his giant Norse ass back into the elevator and push the button for the bottom floor. I’ll alert the kids he’s coming and let Bruce take it from there.”

Natasha’s hand shot out suddenly, gripping his wrist. “We fight as a team. No solo heroics, no focusing on your husband. If he’s put himself out there, we’ll assume he knows what he’s doing. Keep in mind, Tony, Loki probably has more combat training than all of us combined.”

“He’s a brilliant fighter,” Steve tried to soothe him. “Believe me, Tony. I’m not sure you’ve ever seen your husband at his finest, when he’s not trying to throw the game. I have.”

 _But…!_ Tony wanted to protest, only he knew Nat and Steve were right. They were a team, and they needed to act like one. After all the strategies, all the maneuvers they’d practiced, that would be the best way to keep everyone safe, including Loki.

Then the door slid open, and hell erupted around them, complete with fire and brimstone—and not just the little gentle puffs that came with Kurt’s bamfing. Tony was talking full-on inferno.

The red of the fires turned all the greens of Loki’s armor to glittering blacks, his tall form and horned helmet silhouetted against that hot light making him look like some elegant devil dancing through his personal hell—except that he wasn’t dancing, but fighting for all their lives.

Even then he found the sight almost mesmerizing. For one thing, Loki hadn’t been kidding about his scepter. He not only had it in hand, he was putting it to good use, at least in its more weaponary capacity, swinging the staff in deadly arcs, firing out sudden blast shields, gutting or impaling his foes with its scythe-shaped tip, in-between flinging out flights of his wicked little throwing knives.

Those blessed knives seemed to be everywhere. There were massive things dying in great gouts of yuck, as well as little scrabbly things, about the size of Chihuahuas, which looked remarkably like…

“Spiders,” Clint whined beside him, “Why did it have to be spiders?”

Meanwhile, the suit (which had finally managed to join him, shooting up through one of the conduits he’d constructed for that very purpose) began to form itself around him. The process now took seconds, but still seemed to drag on forever, while Tony jittered and fidgeted, realizing that Clint had held back beside him to give cover while he suited up.

“Respirators!” Natasha snapped. While they lingered in the elevator, its tech filtered their air. Once they stepped outside…

Tony coughed a time or two inside his helmet, the atmosphere outside too much even for the suit's air purification system. With a flick of his eyes, he cued backup oxygen to kick in. He missed J.A.R.V.I.S. The J.A.R.V.I.S. of the old days, not the one who tried to destroy his family, and turn him into both a no-longer-functional alcoholic and a far uglier kind of rage-beast than Bruce ever thought of being.

The ocular control system just wasn’t the same. He felt lonely for that snarky British voice.

All this took seconds, and then they were cutting loose, just the way they’d practiced—and more, because with an odd, clicking, shifting sensation, they were connected, not com-to-com (Tony suspected the coms wouldn’t have worked all that well anyway in the current situation) but mind-to-mind.

His head filled with the presence of his teammates—and an entirely different snarky British voice.

 _Oh, by all the gods, drive them back, make them, with their own bodies, block passage to their fellows, allowing no others to pass through to this place_.

 _Hey, who’s in charge here?_ Natasha returned, laughter in her thoughts and both guns blazing.

At least the damn things seemed capable of being killed. Tony also caught no sense at all that they were plowing their way through sentient beings, and because of that, felt not the slightest dribble of guilt.

These were creatures, icky creatures at that, making it all like some hyper-realistic first-person-shooter video game.

It might actually have been kind of fun, except for the part where it was totally terrifying—and there’d been no pause, no time to look for their fallen teammate, let alone drag Thor's giant, godlike fallen ass out of the battle.

No time to look around, period, or even to really think, only time to react, to fight, relying partly on well-practiced strategy, partly on instinct, most of all on pure muscle-memory. And, no denying, at that moment, and contained to the top of the tower with no threat of civilian casualties, The Hulk’s presence sure would have come in handy.

Not that Tony blamed Bruce. Bruce wasn’t a natural-born fighter, the way the rest of them, maybe, were, each in their different ways. Bruce tended more toward the scholarly and inquisitive, and violence… well, violence always reminded him of one thing, and one thing only.

No wonder, each time he changed back from being The Other Guy, Bruce felt shaky, almost sick. It wasn’t just the physical alteration he went through, which couldn't have been easy, it was that every single fight Bruce took part in was yet another battle against The One Great Evil.

The One Great Evil whose name would always be, for all eternity, Brian Banner.

As Bruce’s friend, first and foremost, Tony had to respect that—but it still would have brought him joy to see Hulk’s huge green fists flattening hordes of slimy nightmare-beasts, monsters that then wouldn’t have been able to go after Tony’s husband, or his unborn son.

Clint fired arrow after exploding arrow into the edges of the pack, taking out huge swathes of the creepies trying to batter down the shimmery green dome that confined them to the top of the tower—a good thing, too, because Loki, he’d realized, felt every blow against that barrier like a punch in the face.

Cap and Nat dove in to stop the others from ever getting close to the wall, Steve’s shield zinging out again and again like a giant, deadly Frisbee, while Bucky fired a huge gun he seemed to have pulled out of nowhere, completely unflappable, picking the biggest, meanest dudes out the monster-pack, his metal hand simultaneously crushing the life out of anything that got too close.

Tony, in turn (except for the worry), was having the time of his life making monster-jelly out of their friends, big and little, from above.

Meanwhile Loki, scepter whirling, worked a steady path toward the portal, or rift, or whatever you wanted to call the jagged rip in the air currently vomiting out nightmares in every direction. He went in at an angle, avoiding the front of the rip, and Tony soon realized why—even as the nasties pushed out into their world, the portal exuded a reverse pull like the universe's most powerful shop-vac, one the monsters seemed immune to, but that someone from their side, even someone as strong as Loki, would find almost impossible to resist.

Though he’d taken a diagonal approach, Loki clearly had to struggle to hold fast against the suction.

Once, and only once, Tony tried firing at the rift from overhead, letting loose a full-strength blast and holding it for nearly a minute. Result? Dozens of creatures fried.

Only then the damn portal shimmered darkly, sucked in the energy he'd expended, and blew up to twice its original size.

“Fuck that!” Tony yelled, and Cap didn’t even “Language!” him—he was too busy being swarmed, scorch-holes in his spangle-suit and his shield all covered in slime.

 _Perhaps not?_ Loki’s voice said drily in his head. _A worthy effort, though, my husband, however ill-conceived._

_Uh, thanks. I think. How you holding up, babe?_

_Admirably_ , Loki replied.

He felt tired, though, Tony knew it—he could feel his husband’s tiredness settle into his own brain, his own bones, and if Lok got too tired…

Too tired to close up the rift…

 _Well, then,_ Tony admitted, _they would probably all be history._

 _Guys?_ he put forth. _Our resident sorcerer’s kinda flagging._

 _I am quite well,_ Loki protested.

 _You always say that! He always says that_ , he told the others. _I’ve learned to totally disregard._

 _Cap, Barnes, move in_ , Natasha commanded. _Take the pressure off Loki. He needs to reach the rift in order to seal it. Clint and I will protect the shield. Stark, troubleshoot from above._

 _Got it!_ they all responded, with variations, except for Loki, who answered with a weary, _I thank you, Lady Natasha._

Tony dropped lower, trying to cut a path for his teammate (and Barnes) to reach his beleaguered husband, trying to cover Loki too.

The mind-to-mind contact started cutting in and out, replaced by violent bursts of that red static. Gods, those nightmare monsters! Faceless things, and things with too many faces, too many eyes, lamprey mouths, mandibles, tentacles, suckers, chittering insect legs and, of course, those purse-puppy-sized spiders.

Funny how a size that seemed tiny and cute in one thing could feel like nonstop bad dream-material in another.

 _Oh, fuck!_ Clint yelled inside his head. _I’m bit! I’m bit! Christ, it’s burning!_

 _How bad?_ came from Natasha.

_Shoulder. Oh, god, it’s on fire!_

From above, Tony saw Clint rip off his respirator, half leaning on his bow as he violently puked, his thoughts, when Tony could detect them, jumbled, whirling.

He swooped down, grabbed the archer under the arms, unceremoniously flew him to the elevator, and dumped him. At least Clint would be able to breathe there, respirator or no respirator.

 _Alerted_ … static… _Bruce_ … more static… _to infirmary_ … Loki sent. He’d brought his scepter to bear on the rift, its jewel glowing green now—with what Tony thought of as “Loki-light”--not tesseract blue, though, come to think of it, the jewel hadn’t been blue all night. He suspected blue had never been its proper color, or that the stone that held the place of honor before had been replaced by something totally different, something that wasn't a special little gift from Thanos, or part of Loki’s own unhappy episode of mind control, a control only broken when Hulk smashed him into the floor, severing the bond to his masters.

Which had, of course, been Loki’s goal all along.

Here on the tower, Loki had drawn off both the gauntlets he’d worn for fighting. He wasn't there to fight, not anymore. His strong, slender hands gripped the shaft of the scepter, their white, white skin blood-red in the crimson light, as he channeled his magic so powerfully that even Tony, notoriously deaf to such things, could feel the hum.

A hum that slowly grew to a howl, as Loki gave everything he had to closing the rift, his entire body shaking, first sweat running down his face, visible even though the narrow opening of his helm, then Loki’s own blood.

But close the portal he did, drawing its edges together to form a puckered scar, like a wound stitched by clumsy hands, then more tightly, firmly, the air warping, twisting, shimmering, until at last only the night sky stretched before them, unmarked and still, every trace of red gone, leaving only moonlight and whatever high pressure sodium lights hadn’t burst into a zillion pieces to light the battlefield.

A single nightmare head, fanged and feelered, dropped down at Loki’s feet, its body apparently left behind in the netherworld where the red lights burned.

Loki turned slowly, looking utterly spent.

Over his shoulders, just for a second, Tony glimpsed two figures. One was a tall, slim woman with a dead-white face, dressed in a kind of Robin Hood get-up of black—one of Hela’s “Sisters,” he assumed (though he couldn’t have guessed which), there to do her duty if required.

The second was a man, a ludicrously tall and burly man with a well-trimmed silver beard and hair. The sleeves of his gray robes had fallen back from his bare arms, showing fair skin marked all over with white scar-runes. His eyes glinted, blue as the edges as flames.

Even with the distance, Tony knew him at once. Nelson.

Fucking Nels Lars Nelson.

Tony felt incapable of movement, incapable of speech, but a heartbeat later, a strangled cry burst forth from his throat and he found himself firing dual pulse-bolts at full force toward Loki’s once-colleague and betrayer, not even thinking, beyond that he’d love to reduce Nelson to a grease-spot on the top of his tower. Goodbye and no regrets.

Except the beams just bounced off him, rebounding to knock Loki and about five hundred monsters flat. For most of the creatures, that was it, the fat lady had sung her last.

Loki cried out as he skidded over the concrete, but at least, once that stopped, he seemed to be trying to struggle to his feet again, though his helm had fallen off and his lush hair tumbled down around his face.

Nels Lars Nelson, the bastard, vanished, not only unscathed but completely untouched.

Tony could have sworn that Nelson smiled as he disappeared, the light flashing off his strong, carnivorous-looking teeth.

The sight infuriated Tony to the point that he had to blast half a dozen monsters, just to relieve his feelings, after which he dropped down to roof-level, running to his husband.

Loki had made it back up to his hands and knees, swaying in the middle of a sea of corpses. He seemed exhausted, barely coherent, still trembling and sweating.

Tony snatched him up, hugging him probably way too tight, opening his mask to kiss his husband’s bloody, sweaty face, with no thought as to danger, only that Loki had done this amazing thing and made it through.

“Okay, baby,” Tony yelled, to be heard over the noise of the dying battle. “You’re done for the night. Home or infirmary…?”

“Our foe…” Poor Loki—his gorgeous green eyes weren’t even focusing anymore. He clung, panting, to Tony’s arm. He really was done. “Never conscious… have I left the field of engagement… Prince of Asgard… and Jötunnheimr…”

“It’s over, sweetheart, bar the shouting.” Tony didn’t actually know if that was even close to true, he just knew what Loki needed to hear. If his husband stayed out there, exhausted as he was, through some misplaced sense of honor or pride, he was going to get hurt, maybe even killed, and that just wasn’t going to happen on his watch.

With the suit on, Tony could pick his husband up easily. Loki’s head rested on his shoulder on the short flight to the elevator. He cracked his faceplate again to quickly kiss his husband’s forehead, then pushed the button for their floor. “Armor off, grab a couple snack boxes, straight to bed? I’ll get Bruce to come check you out as soon as he’s able, and call Hank if he needs to. I’ll probably be there even sooner than that. Gods, my baby, you were so brave!”

Sagging against the elevator wall, Loki shook his head slightly. “Tony, I thought… I believed…”

A peal of thunder sounded, deafeningly, up above. “Hey, do you think your brother’s up?” Tony asked, brightly.

Loki turned his face to the elevator wall.

“Baby? Loki, what’s up? You done good! You done real good!” He hoped his terrible grammar would shake his husband out of whatever this was, on the principle that Loki would probably rise from the grave to stop a crime against language.

Lightning sizzled behind them, strike after strike after strike.

“Yup, I’d say that’s your bro.” Tony reached out to stroke Loki’s wildly disheveled hair back from his face, but his husband flinched away from the touch.

“Baby?” Tony asked, confused and a little hurt.

Loki let out a low moan, the Asgardian armor melting away from his body, so that he slumped there in only his usual casual-wear of tunic and leggings, his feet bare and vulnerable. He wrapped both arms over the roundness of his belly, drawing his knees up to his chest, and for a moment Tony’s blood ran ice-cold with fear for both Loki and their unborn son—until he realized the unbearable, ungovernable pain he felt leaking out from his husband was far more emotional than physical.

“Lok?” Tony tried again.

“I saw him, even so clearly as I now see you,” Loki breathed—though with his face pressed to the wall, Tony doubted he saw much but the paneling. “I saw Nels Lars, Tony.”

Tony realized that what his husband was actually feeling had to be shame, burning, unfathomable shame, and his heart ached that Loki would ever experience such a thing. He’d done no wrong. He hadn’t hurt anyone. He certainly hadn’t asked for this. All he’d done was trust the wrong person, a cruel, two-faced old man.

It hit him suddenly, like a smack in the face: he’d had that one thought about Hydra, so how about this? Old Adolf had been all about the occult, and Hydra was his baby.

As an Avenger, Tony had seen a lot of the military side of Hydra, the trickery and deception and lying. He’d also seen scientists—probably even good scientists, once—be drawn into that organization and use their knowledge and skills for shady--even evil--ends.

Well, he’d be willing to bet there was another side too, a mirror-image to the first. An occult side.

A magical side.

Nels Lars Nelson had pretended to be bad at his work. He’d pretended to be a humble, aging Professor of Scandinavian Studies. He’d pretended to be Norwegian. He had an accent like the giant gay shopkeeper in _Frozen_.

Tony would be willing to bet none of that was true. He’d bet that Nelson was, in fact, very good at his job, supremely confident in his own skills, and not in the least humble. He’d bet that he wasn’t Norwegian at all. He’d bet that the guy’s name was as likely to be Wilhelm Klink as it was Nels Lars Nelson.

He also knew what Nelson was: a liar, probably a sociopath, a rapist, a sadist, a dark sorcerer, a trap set for a god not of this Earth, and often innocent of its ways.

Last of all, given Nelson’s size and strength, he’d be willing to bet one more thing: the man was the dark to Steve’s light, a Hydra Super-Soldier, and not a brainwashed victim either, like Bucky Barnes. This power-hungry dickwad would have submitted willingly to his masters, greedy to be all that he could be.

Tony shed his right gauntlet to touch Loki’s cheek, glad to see, this time, that his husband didn’t jerk away.

“Oh, baby,” he said, “Don’t blame yourself. Never blame yourself. All you wanted was a friend. Everyone wants friends. Even gods aren’t meant to be alone.”

“I am not a god,” Loki whispered, his standard response.

“You are my god,” Tony told him, “My one and only god, my wonderful husband, my beautiful Loki.”

“Your defiled Loki,” his husband spat. “Your unclean Loki.”

Tony pretended to cup his ear, as if listening to a distant noise. “What? Is that the voice of the Allfucker I hear, saying stupid things as usual? Actually, no, it isn’t, because he’s fucking dead, and all his opinions are moot. No one can defile you, Lok, because you are beautiful and pure and undefilable, and the people—or gods—who were shits to you just showed themselves for what they are. Horrible people. Or supernatural beings. Or whatever the fuck else.”

“Hear, hear,” Steve said behind him.

“Hear, hear,” Bucky echoed.

Natasha just knelt behind Loki, pressing her cheek to his cheek, whispering something in his ear that almost made Loki smile.

“Hey,” Tony said, “Aren’t you guys supposed to be off killing monsters?”

“I have fried them with my mighty lightning,” Thor said, in a satisfied sort of way. He staggered into the elevator and flopped down on the floor behind his brother. He now sported a Tyrion Lannister-level facial wound, but Tony could see that was already healing nicely. He’d bet by morning the thunder god would be as unnaturally handsome as ever.

“And then the rest melted into sludge,” Natasha said. “It was spectacularly disgusting.”

“But convenient,” Steve put in. “You’ll probably want to get a hazmat team up there in the morning to clean up the mess, Tony.” He pronounced the term “hazmat team” proudly. Maybe the word was on his vocabulary list for the week.

“Yeah,” Tony said. “Yeah, I’ll do that." By now everything had started to seem surreal, almost like he’d fought away the night in his dreams and the particulars had already begun to slip from his memory. He no longer knew what to think.

Natasha climbed to her feet, her face equally perplexed. “Was that…? Was any of that…?”

“It was real,” Loki told them, with a muted, weary fury. “It was real, and I shall remember. I shall remember every bit of it.”


	9. Arachnophobia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tower-top battle comes indoors as the team and the Stark family fight together to save Clint's life.
> 
> Warnings for yuck and arachnophobia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My daughter had this exact Thomas the Tank Engine toy as a toddler, given to her by one of her honorary aunties. It has to have been one of the most annoying frickin' toys ever created to delight the hearts of the young. Thomas, of course lives his trainly existence on Sodor Island.
> 
> "at one fell swoop"=all at once  
> "Fell," meaning, in this case,"deadly" (it has the same root word as "felon," bringing with it lots of negative connotations--bad, evil, lethal, fierce, etc.). We can credit Shakespeare for bringing the phrase into common use, via _Macbeth_ (1605), in Macduff's line when he hears that his family and servants have all been killed, "All my pretty ones?  
>  Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?  
> What, all my pretty chickens and their dam at one fell swoop?" (Act IV, scene 3).

* * *

They almost made it into the apartment. Almost. They even got as far as Tony keying in the code to open the suite’s door, and the door itself opening to give them a view of Erik Selvig’s homely, beaming face, along with the back of Fen’s sleepy little head as it rested on the old man’s shoulder, when Loki breathed regretfully, “No.”

He gave Tony’s hand a small, apologetic squeeze. “Please go in. Comfort our children. Assure them I am well, only needed below.”

“Needed?” Tony asked. “Loki, no. No way. You’re completely done in. Let someone else go.”

“Can another remove a quasi-magical infestation from the body of your teammate? If not, then I fear I must be the one.”

“Quasi-magical infestation,” Tony repeated. “There’s no way to spin that without it coming out scary and gross, is there?”

“Regretfully.” Loki gave him a tired smile and retreated to the elevator, leaning against the back wall, eyes closed.

Tony wished he knew what to do, or someone they could call on for backup. Steve Strange came to mind, but since he already seemed to have crapped out on whatever deal he and Loki had going…

He’d always thought Dr. Strange was kind of a tool—and, okay, the feeling was probably mutual—but this cemented that point of view firmly in his head. He and Dr. Strange were soon going to have words. Many words. More than possibly of an unfriendly nature. That much was sure.

“Dad,” Jöri said, suddenly right beside him. Had he fugued out for a minute? It suddenly hit Tony just how tired he felt too, and all he’d done was flit around in a spiffy flying suit blasting stuff.

Gods, he was too tired to even think. No wonder Loki was dead on his feet.

The com-button crackled in his ear, suddenly live with Natasha's voice. “Tony, we need something—I’m not quite sure what Loki meant—but something to hold them. A chamber? A vessel? He says it would be easier to send them away all at once, instead of piecemeal.”

It occurred to Tony that Nat sounded freaked. Freaked, disgusted and terrified, when he’d never thought her capable of one any of the three, much less the whole trio at one fell swoop.

He immediately thought, _Clint._ And following that thought, _It’s bad_.

Had Clint been bitten worse than they’d thought? It actually wasn’t much like the archer to even mention an injury, except maybe in passing, or as a joke.

 _“Pabbi_ needs a containment chamber,” Hela said crisply. “As large as you can produce for him quickly. And it must be unbreakable, like the Hulk Tank. If it were to break, all might be lost.”

“Break from what?” Tony asked. His thoughts felt thick and dull. All might be lost? That sounded kinda… dire.

“Pider!” Fen told him emphatically. “Hurry, hurry, we mustn’t be late!”

Tony gave a strangled-sounding laugh, not even meaning to do it. When he was younger, Fen’s favorite toy had been a battery-operated Thomas the Tank Engine that, at the press of a button, spoke those exact words (along with “Whoo-whoo!” and “Hello, my name is Thomas!” Fen pressed that damn button a lot, to the point that sometimes Thomas had to take a little choo-choo journey from Sodor Island up to Top of the Bookcaseland and “rest.”

Come to think of it, Thomas had been a gift to Fen from Clint. Tony had always suspected he’d combed carefully through numerous toy departments for the most mind-destroyingly annoying toy he could find.

 _Pider?_ he thought—and then it hit him—the goddamn purse-puppy spiders that had been swarming all over his roof. Had Loki’s shield broken? Did some get inside after all? And with all the miles of ductwork inside the tower, all the conduits and possible hiding spaces, where Clint generally liked to lurk, not that today was one of his lurking days…

Just what they needed, a tower-wide infestation of three kilo spiders. Yay.

Gods, this was bad. And he didn’t have anything, not anymore. There’d been a prototype Hunk Tank, about the size of a crate for a large dog, but he’d loaned it to S.H.I.E.L.D., and even under Phil Coulson, S.H.I.E.L.D. was like that annoying next-door neighbor who borrows your power tools and never returns them.

Fortunately, he had a backup plan, at least a temporary one. “Hela,” he asked, “How many can you teleport? Can you get _Pabbi_ and Uncle Clint to the Hulk Tank antechamber?”

“If Jör brings the equipment,” his daughter answered, a grim expression on her small, pretty face. If there were cracks in her veneer of calm, Hela managed to hold them together ruthlessly.

“I can also help,” Sleipnir said shyly. “And Fen, who though small, is a fine fighter of monsters. Shall I go with my young brother and sister?” A tiny pause. “Dad?”

“You shall,” Tony began, then caught himself. “I mean, yes, Sleip, that would be fantastic. Whatever help we can get.” One by one, his children winked out of sight, leaving him again, like a loser, to take the elevator down.

Things had already kicked into high gear by the time he finally arrived, his high-speed personal elevator feeling to Tony as if it moved at the pace of a geriatric snail. Clint, stripped to the waist and deathly pale, lay on a gurney, with Loki at the head, the children arranged at the sides like the points of a star that hadn’t been drawn yet. The archer’s shoulder was a mess, cut wide open in an X-pattern, black goo and yellow goo oozing from the wound (cue stomach flip—Tony so wasn’t good at this stuff, never had been, probably never would be, and his issues only seemed to have gotten worse since Loki’s impromptu underground surgery in Wales), fiery-red and swollen up in a raggedy mound even Loki’s long fingers couldn’t have spanned.

“Bruce,” Loki said, “Clint suffers a… a… Hela, dearest, help me with the word?”

“An allergic reaction, Uncle Bruce,” Hela put in succinctly.

“Yes, an allergic reaction to the eggs. Can you give Midgardian medicines that quell this? We would not, unnecessarily, divert our attentions at this time.”

“Got it,” Bruce answered, sorting quickly through the med supplies he'd brought with him, adding in one syringe of clear liquid to the I.V. Clint already had running, then a second one. “I also gave him something to stabilize his heartbeat.”

“Good, good,” Loki crooned softly, clearly only giving a small portion of his consciousness to the conversation. “Lady Natasha, would you increase the oxygen?”

Nat gave a curt nod. She looked nearly as pale as Clint, and her eyes had gone glassy.

Steve rushed in then, Phil Coulson in tow, not even looking like Phil without his glasses, dressed in blue-striped grandpa p.j.’s instead of his ubiquitous black suit, and seeming younger and a hundred times more vulnerable than his usual self.

“Kneel,” Loki said—and Tony gave an involuntary, nervous giggle—“Here before me, by the end of this bed. Cradle Clint’s head within your hands, and think nothing of your fear for him, only of affection and the pleasant memories you share. It is my hope that this will calm him.”

Director didn’t question any of this, only did as Loki said, bending his forehead against the top of Clint’s head, fingers curving to the shape of his boyfriend’s cheeks.

“Now, my children,” Loki said, in the same quiet voice, “We commence.”

Tony had known for some time about Loki’s _seiðr_ , the magic he’d been born with, as opposed to the more intellectual magic he’d studied and learned to use. He’d even seen the _seiðr_ manifest now and then, as cords and threads of green light swirling around Loki’s body in constant motion.

What he totally hadn’t known was that their kids possessed the same thing: Jöri’s green, like Loki’s, only a lighter shade, spring-leaf rather than emerald. Fen’s a rich, earthy brown, Sleip’s silvery and translucent, Hela’s velvet-black. All these lines of color and light and darkness twined, intertwined, wove themselves into a net around Clint’s still form. The sight was breathtaking, like lightning dancing around and about an intricate glass sculpture, shooting off motes of every color into the air.

 _My family,_ he thought, truly breathless now with awe, wonder, fear. _My miraculous family._

Then the truth rose up and smacked him in the face—he didn’t have to be afraid. Loki had this, he totally had this. It didn’t actually matter that he was tired, hungry, battered, and currently about the size of a barn. Thor had been right, Loki didn’t use magic, he _was_ magic, and this was what he’d been born for.

Tony looked up, his eyes catching his husband’s, and saw his own certainty reflected in Loki’s face.

A low hum began to vibrate off the walls, off the clear pane that fronted the Hulk Tank, rising quickly to a bright, crystalline ringing. Thor, who’d been standing against the Tank, looking nervous and a bit confused, hurried forward as the sound reached its peak, raising Mjolnir over his head with one hand, while the other gripped his brother’s shoulder.

Loki nodded, once.

Fine blue lines of current arced from the walls and ceiling, joining in with the pattern of magic and light Loki and the kids were weaving. The room lights flickered, browned out, then brightened again as the arc reactor adjusted to the added pull—and it must have been one hell of a pull, for that to even happen.

Tony was, quite frankly, impressed. He didn’t know how Thor did it, but he had to be conducting enough juice at the moment to fry a herd of African elephants down to the size of chicken nuggets.

And he was laughing, the crazy Asgardian bastard!

The ringing climbed so high Tony's middle-aged, metal-damaged ears could no longer detect it, only feel the waves of sound as it stood up the fine hairs at the back of his neck and made his teeth feel weird.

The black goo that had been seeping from Clint’s wound began to patter against the back wall of the Hulk Tank. Almost at once, orbs like black ping pong balls bloated up out of the muck, most of them exploding at once, but a few…

Oh, Norns and gods of the _Æsir_ , the rest of them were _hatching_ , becoming spiderets that at first would have fit in a tablespoon (hideous, but at least in close enough proximity to the realm of the normal to be viewed with scientific dispassion)—except that, seconds later, they grew, blowing up, as if by some creepy trick of photography, into full-grown spiders.

By “full-grown,” Tony meant, unfortunately, “grown to the size of Labrador retrievers.”

Tony had seen some disgusting things in his time, but those spiders were, bar none, the worst. He felt fairly certain they’d provide him with ample nightmare material to last the rest of his years—and that was taking into account having eaten his wedding-gift golden apple. Certain things were _not_ meant to be big, and these creatures ranked so high among them…

He’d take that back—these monsters didn’t “rank high,” they stood all by themselves at the tippy-top of the list.

Plus, the spiders kept coming. And coming. And coming, puffing up out of the hellacious mess already starting to fill the Hulk Tank. Furthermore, and to make things nine million times worse, they weren’t even really spiders. All of them had at least nine legs, some of them as many as fifteen or sixteen, and as they clashed against each other, and against the walls, legs constantly shattered or snapped off their bodies with a sound like hundreds of dry, snapping sticks.

Then, right in the middle of all this fun, Clint came to and started screaming. He writhed and thrashed to the point that Hela and Jöri, on his left side, got bowled over, at which point Clint shrieked even louder, arching backward like his own bent bow.

“I’m going to pile on more sedation!” Bruce yelled over all this.

Steve lifted the fallen kids back into place on his way to flinging himself down on Clint’s body, clearly fighting with every gram of his Super-Soldier strength to hold him on the gurney.

There were spiders loose in the room with them. Some disappeared at once. Most didn’t.

“Tony! Bucky! Now!” Natasha yelled.

Barnes’s giant gun reappeared, and Tony found himself rolling down his faceplate, rising, shooting and shooting and shooting until all that remained were brittle, broken, monstrous legs everywhere, and stinking black goo smeared and splashed all over the room.

Tony got his feet on the ground and his faceplate up just in time to puke against the base of a wall.

Barnes held his shoulders, steadying him. He’d now met his limit, and this was it. He wanted to flee from the antechamber, parboil the suit, parboil himself, throw up about a dozen more times, fall into a bottle of Glenmorangie, then fall into bed and sleep until June.

Instead, he felt Loki’s presence in his head, like a cooling, healing salve on a raging burn, and Loki’s voice, saying, _All is concluded now, and all is well. The infection is ended, the enemy quelled. We have done well, this night and this day. We have done well._

Tony straightened and turned. The tank and antechamber were an unholy mess, but Clint now lay still and had some color in his face. Steve was helping Bruce collect the medical stuff, while Phil and Natasha rolled the gurney.

The children clustered around Loki, clinging tightly, and Thor hugged him enthusiastically from behind.

“Oh, my loves, my beautiful ones,” Loki said softly, stroking light and dark heads at various heights. “My dearest brother, also. What boons you have been to me in this misfortune!” He smiled at Tony, clearly dead-tired, but hanging in there. “Husband, will you guide our younglings upstairs? Erik, Jane and Thea will see them washed, fed, and put to bed, that you and my brother may attend to yourselves.”

“What about you, Lok?” Tony asked, surprised by the sound of his own voice—it sounded hoarse and ragged, like he’d been crying for hours.

“This place, and the roof also, must be speedily cleansed with fire, then I shall rejoin you.” Behind him, a solid sheet of green-edged flame rose inside the Hulk Tank. Even from where he stood, the heat of it tightened Tony’s skin. And Loki looked… different. Totally himself, but different, and Tony couldn’t quite place what it was.

Still, he smiled, shooing the children gently. “Go now with daddy, precious ones. I shall return to you soon.”

Sleip had Jöri cradled in his arms, but their eldest son was clearly pretty much one of the walking dead, totally asleep on his feet. Tony cued the release that let the suit unfold from his body and took Jör from his brother, and in the elevator ride upward, Sleip leaned on him gratefully, trustingly. He was such a good kid.

Tired as he was, the boy picked up on Tony’s thought, and smiled at him.

Thor lifted Fen, incredibly gentle with the small boy, who looked close to dropping off again, doing a little swaying comforting dance with him, until he actually did fall asleep, lovingly held in his uncle’s arms.

Tony tried to remember why he’d borderline-disliked Thor for so long—been impatient with him, certainly. Condescending. Dismissive.

After their literally hellish morning, his brother-in-law, of course, still looked perfectly cheerful, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, so maybe that was the reason?

“A dread foe defeated, a comrade healed. A day worthy of celebration!”

“But they aren’t defeated,” Hela said. She stood a little apart from the rest of them, and her face looked shadowed, almost old. “ _Pabbi_ sealed the portal. We killed everything that came through. What happens, though, when the Necromancer opens another, even bigger portal? What happens when he tries something else? I must speak with my Sisters…”

Her body winked out, then faded slowly back into view. “And I can’t even go!” she cried out. “I’m too tired. I’m too tired!”

With that, his Childlike Empress burst into tears, and Jöri gave a little wiggle in Tony’s arms that clearly meant, “Put me down.”

Tony did, picking Hela up instead, cradling her against his chest, where she wept and wept, weary and inconsolable, and for once, truly childlike.

Tony didn’t end up crashing. He couldn’t do it. Instead, he caught a quick shower himself while Jane and Erik saw the children through their various showers and baths and into comfy play clothes.

Mrs. Ransome had cleverly invented a family-wide tummy bug and called all the kids out sick to school, and now was manning the stove, producing piles of bacon, eggs and apple pancakes, washed down with gallons of coffee for the adults and gallons of milk and juice for the kids (though Hela had a tendency to steal sips of black coffee from Tony’s cup when his head was turned). She sat pressed up against him, disconsolate and starving.

Tony had thought he wouldn’t be able to look at food, but he ate like the rest, as if his life depended on it, and food might not be something he saw again anytime soon.

After about an hour, Loki appeared, smiled genially at them all, and disappeared into the master bedroom. Tony immediately excused himself and followed.

Loki, it seemed, had gone straight to the bathroom. He already had the shower curtain drawn and the shower running when Tony entered, and Tony sat on the closed toilet to wait him out.

After a few minutes the shower turned off and Loki stepped onto the bathmat, totally naked, his hair dripping streamers of water down his back and over his shoulders.

“I needed to wash my hair, it was vilely disgusting,” he informed Tony. “Would you draw a bath whilst I attempt to restore it to some order? Do you know how difficult it is for one to spread cleansing fire when all one can think of is soaking at length in a lovely bath?”

A large green towel muffled his voice as Loki vigorously toweled his curls. “Whatever temperature you like best, _hjarta minn_. I shall want company, of course.”

“Well, of course!” Tony said, turning the taps, then straightened to examine his husband.

Loki stood at the mirror, fingering straightening lotion through his wet hair, taking care to coat every stand—the most normal sight imaginable. There were plenty of bruises, but no breaks in his creamy, bare skin, thank you Asgardian armor for having major protective qualities.

“Are you okay, baby? Really okay?”

“I am well. Step in, please?”

Tony stepped, and also sat down, Loki following shortly after. He leaned back against Tony’s body, as Tony held him gently, now and then kissing his husband’s neck, his ear, his damp hair.

Loki still smelled vaguely smoky, but not unpleasantly so. It actually went well with his usual smell, which was like evergreens, lemon and clean snow.

“Mmn,” Tony said, “You smell like the Log of _Jul_.”

Loki made a brief humming sound, and let his head fall back against Tony’s shoulder. “Our children are brilliant, and my pride in them immense.”

“You and me both, babe. I didn’t know the kids had the… you know, the stuff.”

“The _seiðr_? They _are_ of my substance, Tony.”

Tony reached up for a plushy green washcloth, lathering it well with Loki’s ultra-hypoallergenic, all-organic, handmade-by-monks-in-Vermont soap. Nothing but the best for his Loki. Slowly, tenderly, he glided the soapy cloth over every inch he could reach of his husband’s battered skin, listening to Loki’s almost inaudible purr as he drowsed, almost drowsing himself.

Given someone to refresh the hot water, he could have lain there for hours, just holding his beautiful alien god, who he loved so completely.

Hela’s words bothered him, though, and Tony couldn’t keep them to himself, no matter how much he wanted to do it. “Lok…” he began. “Our daughter told me…”

“I know what Hela said,” Loki answered, with quiet annoyance—not with him, but with the entire situation. “I’m well aware that today was most likely only a test, that the false friend Nelson—if that is, in fact, his true name—will return, most likely at the most inopportune of moments. I knew the moment I felt the ring of strangeness atop your wondrous tower that it would come to something like this.

“But, Tony…” Loki surged up out of the water in a single motion; Tony honestly didn’t know how he managed it.

He scrambled to follow, sloshing a hell of a lot of bathwater in the process.

He’d thought Loki might be upset, distraught even, but on closer inspection, his husband proved to be the opposite. He looked confident, powerful, regal, and that while hugely pregnant and dressed in nothing but a towel slung around his hips.

He looked, Tony realized, kingly, and that was the difference he’d noticed before—this was still his Loki, always his Loki, but a Loki forged in fire, strengthened but not hardened, made one hundred percent purely himself.

“When I fought,” Loki said thoughtfully, as he carefully toweled himself dry. “I thought I should fight alone, perhaps with only Hela beside me. I knew a portal would open. I felt the energies that foretold it from the first, and knew I must battle whatever emerged. Only, I did not know if I could win. In fact, I thought I might well lose, and feared the encounter. Your Dr. Strange, of course, proved useless, as I expected he would. He and I shall have words.” Loki grinned. “We shall see how he defends his self-styled title of ‘Sorcerer Supreme’ against the god of mischief. Shall I attempt something grand, Tony, or perhaps bedevil him in divers petty ways?”

“He’s certainly not _my_ Dr. Strange, and I’m sure you’ll think of something suitable,” Tony told him, wrapping his arms around his husband’s waist. Edwin chose the moment to give both his parents a good swift kick.

“Are you absolutely certain that one’s not ready to hatch? You keep telling me it’s going to be months, but he already feels like he’s ready for the NFL. That’s the…"

Loki laughed. “I know! Your American football.”

“You don’t have to say American like it rhymes with ‘pond scum.’ No, not rhymes.” Tony yawned hugely, rubbing his eyes. “Tell me what it is I really mean, please?”

“’Is a synonym for,’ is, I believe, what you actually intended, my poor, weary beloved, and now how I also long to sleep beside you in our wide and most-comfortable bed, though that the wideness will be sadly wasted as I must, without fail, hold you close, so close to my heart. And Edwin has done the better part of his growing of the body, now his mind and his magic must follow, as it should be, unlike our older three who I must needs grow in might of thought and Craft, long before their bodies were ready.”

“I wondered why they were so small, compared to Edwin. I thought it was because they were triplets.”

“For that, and because I was not well, and that I plotted our escape ever from their monstrous sire, and must move quickly and lightly, when I could.” For a few seconds, the old, shadowed, lost look came over Loki’s face, but he quickly shook it off again. “But then, I was alone, except for my children. Now I am not. Now I have you, my love, and you have me, for the support and delight of one another. We have our most-wonderful family, ever-growing. We have my brother, who makes a family of his own, with whom I have never in all my long years been on better terms. We have…”

Loki glanced aside, and for a moment, Tony thought he was feeling troubled again, but his husband was only moved, powerfully moved, and trying to force the words out past the lump in his throat.

“We have friends, Tony,” he managed at last. “We have friends, and when I feared the lack of my own might, they fought beside me, and defended me, as if I was one of them. They allowed me neither to falter nor fall, Tony, and I have never…” His eyes met Tony’s, and his face still looked regal, but also young, and more than a little vulnerable. “I have never,” he finished softly.

“I know, baby. I know.” Tony reached up, brushing back a corkscrew tendril of silky black hair. The straightening lotion seemed to be in a state of fail this A.M., probably from the steam of the bath, but Tony hardly minded—he quite possibly loved Loki’s curls as much as his husband hated them. “But you know, don’t you, that it’s never going to be bad like that again? We all care about you. We all have your back, just like you had ours. You’re not alone.”

“Not to be alone,” Loki told him, “Is rather a wonderful thing. On the whole.”

“On the whole,” Tony echoed, laughing, pulling Loki’s face down for a kiss, then releasing him. “Now maybe put some clothes on, much as I hate to douse the glory of your beautiful nakedness. I can hear your tummy rumbling, and have some suspicion that Mr. Edwin wants feeding. Am I correct?”

“He is a very demanding child,” Loki answered, grinning back at him. “He gets that from you, of course.” He swanned off to the bedroom, quickly climbing into his favorite casualwear of green, tunicy sweater and black leggings, leaving his feet bare.

Tony followed, and dressed, more slowly, mostly so that he could enjoy the view.

Loki even stopped a few moments to push futilely at his rampant hair. “ _Mein Gott!_ ” he exclaimed, and Tony watched his eyes cloud a little the moment he’d spoken the German phrase. “I have the hair of Ludwig von Beethoven,” he concluded, almost sadly.

“Well, Ludwig isn’t using it,” Tony quipped, but he could see Loki was in a mood to be consoled, not cheered—it had, after all, been one hell of a morning.

“Kurt will be back,” he continued, putting a tone of total assurance into his words. “You’ll see, babe. You know he misses you too.”

“Yes. Yes, I will see him. I must be certain of that. I must be.”

“Get some food in you. You always get gloomy when you’re too hungry.”

That won Tony another flash of smile. “Yes, that is most certainly true. I believe my mind associates the feeling with less-promising times. I do hope Thea has offered sustenance to Phillip, Stephen and Natasha.”

“Um… why would that be, babe?”

“They are currently occupying the large chairs and a part of the sofa in our common area. They bear with them a sense of a request, or an offer, waiting to be made, however, I am currently far too hungry—and weary—to sieve out more specific thoughts. I wonder what it is they wish.”

“I think I can guess,” Tony answered—figuring his husband was about to be offered a whole new kind of community service, a kind that had nothing to do with Loki’s Club of Boys and Girls. He just wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

Down beneath the part of him that was so damn proud of Loki, that knew he’d more than earned this new respect, this new trust, lurked the part screaming, _No! No! I’m scared!_

And he _was_ apprehensive, he _was_ scared. No, actually, make that terrified—not only for Loki and their baby, and what threats lay ahead, but also because it seemed like everything was changing, like this was the end of the era, too, in which he was the strong one in their relationship.

Only, maybe his husband had always been the strong one, and he’d been too caught up in himself to be aware. Look at all Loki had survived.

“You really don’t know, babe?” Tony asked. “They’re here to invite you to become an Avenger. Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, you know.”

 

The End  
To Be Continued in _Brave New Worlds_


End file.
